1. Topic

2. Introduction

"Car sharing" is an international term for a scheme whereby several people share access to one or more cars. A car sharing service enables cars to be used in a “multi-owner" system run by a public or private association or user-owner cooperative. Instead of owning their own car people "rent" one, but under very different conditions to a car rental agency. With car sharing one has unlimited access to the common vehicles and pays according to self consumption.

3. Discussion

Car sharing allows vehicles to be used under particular conditions:

· The vehicle can be booked for very short periods (down to a minimum of an hour);

· The service is active 24 hours a day and

· The cost is calculated on the basis of both the time used and the number of kilometres covered, and it can also vary according to time bands.

A major difference with respect to car hire is that users must become, in first place, a member of the association before being able to use the cars. Consumption is calculated on the basis of the actual use of the car at rates which take into consideration, and differentiate, between the length of time the car is hired for and the number of kilometres covered. The charge made includes all costs connected with ownership and use of a car such as insurance, road tax, fuel, maintenance, repair and cleaning.

One primary difference between car sharing and private car ownership is the cost structure. While a privately owned car implies very high fixed costs and low variable costs, the opposite applies to car sharing, the fixed costs are low and the variable costs high. The cost structure of car sharing provides good grounds for cutting down on driving. The variable costs are three to four times higher than for a privately owned car. This difference fosters a far more conscious transport behaviour, where the means of transportation for each trip is closely considered. This also makes public traffic much more competitive, since bus and train fares become comparable to marginal costs that are three to four times higher. Since participants in car sharing tend to use other means of transport, they drive less.

The effect of car sharing is to reduce pollution, energy consumption, noise and traffic accidents. Car sharing shows one of the rare steps towards sustainable development of urban areas. It is a practical step to reduce the number of cars in the cities (it is estimated that each car sharing car replaces 5 to 6 private cars), winning back an enormous asset: public space. Also the pay-as-you drive system gives an incentive to reduce car driving, with a positive effect on urban air quality. In theory, the advantages of car sharing can be divided into three categories:

• The environment is further protected because users of car sharing generally drive newer and smaller cars with low fuel consumption, which might not have been the case had they owned their car. Moreover, car sharing is primarily used for special transportation tasks involving transportation of more than one person (the so-called "car pooling").
• Mobility benefits imply that more people gain access to greater mobility. People who previously had no car become able to participate in activities they could not participate in earlier.
• Efficiency benefits entail financial benefits for both society and the individual user. This means that users of car sharing save money by not having their own car (for example they have no bother with maintenance and repairs). At the same time, society gains a number of infrastructural benefits in the form of changed transport demand.

Considering car sharing as an element of inter-modal (combined) transport behaviour engenders the most significant benefits. Using car sharing is advantageous for medium-distance trips, while using public means of transportation are better for long trips, and short trips are best taken on foot or by bicycle, local buses or taxi.

4. Recommendation / Conclusion

The most important obstacles to car sharing are infrastructure, personal finance and behaviour patterns. To overcome these obstacles it is needed to:

· Integrate car sharing in local traffic planning;

· Closely cooperate with the collective traffic system;

· Give rewards for car owners who scrap their car in favour of car sharing;

· Make an intensive information effort and

· Further research into behavioural obstacles.

The infra-structural obstacles to car sharing primarily concern access to proper parking facilities in the cities and the lack of public traffic alternatives. The integration of car sharing in local traffic planning and close cooperation with the public traffic system is a necessary initiative if the use of car sharing is to increase.

The primary reason for private financial obstacles is that motorists tend to compare marginal costs and not total costs, thus failing to recognise the actual financial savings of car sharing. To this, financial costs should be added related to disposing of one’s car when one joins a car-sharing scheme. Initiatives ensuring or enhancing a general recognition of transport costs are desirable, just as a scrapping premium would help solve the problems related to car disposal.

The behavioural obstacles play a crucial role in relation to car sharing, but further studies are needed to identify the character of these obstacles and provide the means to remove them. Intensified information efforts will probably be of some help in removing the obstacles.

Car sharing is a measure that tends to reduce the emissions of all the types of pollutants since it causes in general a reduction in the number of trips made with both diesel (strong NOx and PM emitters) and gasoline cars (which are relevant CO and VOC emitters).

5. Examples / Further Reading

There are a lot of Car Sharing experiences in the World. The oldest ones are dated the 80s when some first voluntary experiences among privates were born.

Firstly motivated by the emerging environmental sensibility and the willingness to reduce the fixed operation costs of the private vehicles, Car Sharing became more and more a service with lower costs and higher performances in comparison with the private car possession.

During the 90s the Car Sharing increased significantly its market particularly in some countries of Central and Northern Europe. For the past years first experiences of Car Sharing are born also in North America and Asia. Presently in Europe the Car Sharing users are more than 100.000 in more than 400 towns, where more than 200 companies operate. In 1991 was also founded by the 5 most important companies the European Car Sharing Association (ECS) supporting the activities of the national organisations in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

The most important National experiences may be summarised as follows:

• Switzerland. The Car Sharing appeared for the first time in Switzerland in 1987 based on a couple of vehicles and 30 users. The progressive strong development (rate of growth about 50% per year) of this transport concept over 10 years brought in 1997 to the fusion of the two largest cooperative companies (ShareCom and ATG) in the Mobility CarSharing Switzerland, that in 2001 managed a fleet of more than 1300 vehicles (13 different models) with over 30.000 users in 330 towns and villages all over the country and a fixed working staff of nearly 100 people.

The cars are normally located in more than 700 parking areas strictly integrated with the public transport network (250 of the parking areas are near railways stations). "Mobility Car Sharing Switzerland" is presently the biggest Car Sharing company in the World covering about 40% of the European market share.

• Germany. The first Car Sharing organisation StattAuto was born in Germany in 1988. Today this company operates in Berlin and Hamburg and in 2001 managed a fleet of more than 300 vehicles (9 different models) with over 7500 users and a working staff of 25÷50 people. The cars are normally located in about 110 parking areas integrated with the public transport network (agreements with some public transport companies allow the fare integration) and companies interested to the progressive substitution of the Car Sharing concept to the management of a proprietary fleet. The second larger German Car Sharing company is StadtAuto established in Bremen in 1990 within an University research project that a launched a first fleet of three cars and 28 users. In 2001 StadtAuto managed a fleet of 80 vehicles located in 40 parking areas to the service of over 1700 users.

The Car Sharing companies presently operating in Germany are more than 60 in more than 90 towns with a global fleet of over 1000 vehicles and a users amount of more than 25.000.

• The Netherlands. In the Netherlands presently operates more than 30 Car Sharing companies grouping a global amount of 25.000 users and 800 vehicles. Strong support to the Car Sharing comes in this country from the government starting from 1997, when the National Plan for Energy and Environment identified Car Sharing as a key issue against the strong increase of the motorisation.
• Italy. Up to now the Car Sharing experiences in Italy are limited to a limited number of demonstrative experimentations in Bolzano, the province of Milan, Naples, Palermo, Turin and Venice (within the EU ENTIRE Project). Further projects are going to be implemented with the support of the Ministry of the Environment, which in 1998 (Decree on Sustainable Mobility) financed the incentives to municipalities willing to participate in the development of a common organisational and technological approach in order to reduce the initial high start-up costs. The involved municipalities are Bologna, Brescia, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Modena, Naples, Palermo, Perugia, Rome, Turin and Venice, which have founded a specific Italian Car Sharing (ICS) consortium.
• Rest of the Europe. In Europe various further Car Sharing applications are ongoing in Austria (about 160 vehicles and 1600 users), Denmark (about 50 vehicles and 500 users), Scandinavian countries (about 125 vehicles and 4000 users), France (PRAXITELE project with about 50 vehicles) and United Kingdom.
• Rest of the World. Outside Europe the largest Car Sharing applications are in Canada (about 100 vehicles and 1600 users), Singapore (about 20 vehicles and 500 users), USA and Japan.

One of the most interesting experiments of new city logistic concepts is the ELCIDIS project, which has been running from March 1998 till August 2002 in six European cities (Erlangen, Milan, Stavanger, Rotterdam, Stockholm, La Rochelle) and was aimed at proving the reliability of using hybrid or electric vans and trucks for urban distribution, in combination with the use of urban distribution centers. In this experiment the generally prevailing opinion about the technical disadvantages of hybrid and especially electric vehicles has revealed to be inconsistent. In these sites, vehicles operating from the UDC are able to run daily routes without interruption and are being recharged during their inactive night period. In spite of this, the vehicle investment costs will remain a very important obstacle if a substantial reduction is not foreseen. The French approach, where a split in costs is made between the vehicle and its batteries, is a firm step in the right direction, but has not yet been widely followed. In Italy, many cities are taking into higher consideration freight distribution problems and a lot of analysis and studies are being carried out in order to individuate the best solutions.

The most relevant Italian initiatives are being carried out in the cities of Genoa and Siena. Genoa Municipality has founded and organized a UDC serving the historical centre of the town; UDC is provided with a fleet of low environmental impact vehicles (electric or methane fuelled) whose dimension are small enough to well circulate in the narrow streets of the historical centre. A tele-matic and information system supports UDC activities such as monitoring of deliveries and vehicle positions, optimization of delivering tours, billing of goods arriving to the UDC. Most goods arrive at the UDC without any previous notice and do not use bar code, so that they have to be processed manually within the UDC. Contract conditions are to ensure delivering within three hours from the arrival to the UDC, so that deliveries are dealt by following a first-in first-out rule and no tour optimization is carried out, although the software system would make it available. In any case, carriers and retailers have declared their satisfaction for the service, while the UDC operators complain of the localization of UDC, which is too far from the area to serve, and of small vehicle size.

The delivery service is until now free and the Administration has in charge all extra-costs, but it is provided that in the future a payment fee will be requested for the service. It is supposed that stronger measures to limit access into the historical centre (no entry for non-ecological vehicles) could make suppliers use the UDC services even if they have to pay for them. For the experimental phase UDC operation has been given in charge to a local haulage company; at the end of the test three business management possibilities have been thought:

• only one company (or co-operative), chosen by means of an invitation to tenders, will buy vehicles and software and will operate the delivery service, while the access to the zone will be limited but not completely forbidden;
• only one company (or co-operative), chosen by means of an invitation to tenders, will operate the delivery service without buying any existing tool, while the access to the zone will be completely forbidden and
• carriers can use the UDC tools supporting the operating costs.

The pilot project carried out by Siena Municipality has quite different characteristic from the Genoa’s one. In Siena the main feature is an Agency for City Logistics, which operates by means of an information and telematic platform (named eDrul), whose main tasks are:

• booking, planning and management of logistics services;
• information to delivery actors (retailers, consumers, logistics operators);
• coupling long-range freight transport and urban distribution promoting cooperation between operators.

The eDrul platform is being experimented also in other European city as Lisbon, Heindhoven, and Aalborg. In Siena it is also linked to a private logistic base, which eDrul uses to manage delivery and route planning, delivery monitoring, data warehouse. By means of this platform the City Logistics Agency of Siena aims at carrying out a coordination both among transport operators and between logistic operators and their clients, in order to achieve the target of eDrul project, which is to increase the utilization rate of freight vehicles. As a matter of fact, Siena Municipality is planning to introduce a minimum load factor under which access in the inner city is not permitted. Other Italian towns, such as Roma, Florence, Bologna, are experimenting City Logistics features in the near future, though so far only studies and projects have been carried out.

Leeds City Council (UK) was a lead member of a European consortium formed to research methods of Increasing Car Occupancy (ICARO). In 1998 Leeds opened its first combined bus, cycle and High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane. To use this lane cars you must have at least 2 people in them. This is one of the first urban uses of this approach in Europe and has been very effective. It has proved that a combined bus, cycle and HOV lane in an innovative urban application, as opposed to the more typical, inter-urban (i.e. motorway) application, is achievable.

Other examples are given in dedicated example templates:

Car sharing initiative in the municipality of Venice

Car Sharing – The Moses Project & The City of Bremen

Bristol Car Club

6. Additional Documents / Web Links

ECS European Car Sharing: http://www.carsharing.org/english/index.html (Five Car Sharing companies formed the umbrella organization, ECS, in 1991. Since then the membership has grown 50% to 60% annually. Today ECS has 40 participants, who operate shared cars for about 56,000 members in over 550 towns. At present ECS is represented in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Switzerland).

The Car Free Cities Network: http://www.agenda21.bremen.de/carfree/ (The Car Free Cities network was launched in Amsterdam in March 1994. The Network's charter states that in order to achieve a healthier environment, improve traffic safety and promote more efficient use of energy, member cities must promote environmentally friendly modes of transport. The network now brings together about 60 cities from all over Europe).

MOSES is an EU project whose goals are to further develop and extend the concept of car-sharing in Europe. MOSES involves five Car-Sharing demonstration sites: Bremen, Palermo, London, Stockholm and Walloon Region. http://www.moses-europe.org/.

A car sharing service is currently being operated by ASM in Venice (the Municipal Agency for Mobility of Venice) with the final aim to discourage private car use. The service is based upon a fleet including electrical-powered cars and a complex system using telematics technologies for the automated management of the service. The web link is: http://www.asmvenezia.it/eng_interno/e_home.htm

City Car Club is a Car Sharing organization operating in Bristol (UK). City Car Club is currently supported by Bristol City Council and the EU Vivaldi project. A sophisticated telematics platform is deployed to automatically manage the booking operations and the access of the user to the fleet. http://www.smartmoves.co.uk/.

Other examples in EU and National Projects:

• CENTAUR: Graz (Austria).
• ENTIRE: Venice (Italy).
• PRAXITELE: Saint Quentin en Yvelines (France).
• SAGITTAIRE: Stavanger (Norway).
• ZEUS: Bremen (Germany), Palermo (Italy), Stockholm (Sweden).

Last Updated

25th January 2005