Fleet-as-a-Service Architectures for Sustainable Mobility Transitions: Socio-Technical, Environmental, and Digital Infrastructural Perspectives

Abstract

The global transportation sector is undergoing a profound transformation driven by escalating environmental pressures, rapid digitalization, and structural shifts in mobility demand. Traditional models of vehicle ownership and testing are increasingly challenged by the imperatives of sustainability, efficiency, and system-level optimization. Within this evolving landscape, Fleet-as-a-Service (FaaS) has emerged as a pivotal organizational and technological paradigm capable of reshaping vehicle development, deployment, and operational governance. Rather than treating vehicles as discrete, individually owned artifacts, FaaS reconceptualizes mobility assets as shared, digitally orchestrated fleets that integrate testing, validation, operation, and lifecycle management into unified service ecosystems. This research article develops a comprehensive, theory-driven examination of FaaS as a socio-technical innovation situated at the intersection of sustainable mobility transitions, environmental performance optimization, and advanced digital infrastructures.

Grounded strictly in the provided body of interdisciplinary literature, the article positions FaaS within broader debates on automobility systems, sustainability transitions, and emerging industrial digitalization trajectories. Drawing on transition theory, particularly multi-level perspectives on socio-technical change, the study interprets FaaS as both a niche innovation and a potential regime-shaping mechanism capable of altering entrenched patterns of vehicle production, testing, and use (Geels, 2005; Elzen & Wieczorek, 2005). Environmental considerations such as air pollution, noise exposure, energy consumption, water footprints, and climate change impacts are treated not as externalities but as central design variables within FaaS-enabled mobility systems (European Environment Agency, 2023; Berger et al., 2012; Pérez-Martínez & Sorba, 2010). The article further integrates insights from digital infrastructure research, including cloud computing, real-time systems, 5G-enabled industrial networks, and serverless architectures, to analyze how computational elasticity and data-centric coordination underpin scalable fleet operations (Andrews et al., 2014; Rao & Prasad, 2018; Szalay et al., 2021).

Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative, interpretive research design based on systematic literature synthesis and conceptual integration. Rather than presenting empirical measurements, the article develops analytically rich interpretations of existing findings, highlighting patterns, tensions, and future trajectories across environmental science, transport studies, and information systems research. Particular attention is devoted to the work of Deshpande (2024), which conceptualizes FaaS as a transformative model for sustainable vehicle testing and operations, and is woven throughout the analysis as a central theoretical anchor. The results section articulates how FaaS contributes to sustainability outcomes by enabling controlled experimentation, accelerated learning cycles, optimized resource utilization, and reduced environmental burdens across vehicle lifecycles. The discussion critically evaluates these contributions, addressing counter-arguments related to rebound effects, digital energy consumption, governance complexity, and social equity.

By offering an expansive and deeply elaborated theoretical analysis, this article contributes to academic discourse by reframing FaaS as more than an operational innovation. It argues that FaaS represents a structural reconfiguration of automobility systems with significant implications for environmental policy, industrial strategy, and the governance of digital-physical infrastructures. The study concludes by outlining future research directions that emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration, longitudinal system analysis, and policy experimentation to ensure that FaaS evolves as a genuinely sustainable mobility solution rather than a narrowly technical optimization.