Is car sharing part of the solution to urban mobility problems?
Car sharing is part of the solution to urban mobility problems, says Michael Glotz-Richter.
One of the problems commonly identified in European cities is that there are not enough parking spaces. Others might say that ‘there are too many cars and they are too big’. Independent of political positions, there is a growing competition for street space and additional demands are being made by e-charging points, loading zones and other logistics solutions, by adaptation to climate change (‘cool streets’), by walking and cycling and the social role of street space in urban neighbourhoods.
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A traditional, but expensive, way to deal with the demand for space by parked cars is the provision of parking garages in neighbourhoods. The city of Bremen in Germany – which faces substantial financial problems – has added a more efficient and sustainable option: the promotion of car sharing. Bremen’s modal split is overall quite sustainable: 64% of its residents’ trips are done by walking, cycling and public transport. A 2019 survey showed that 26% of all parked cars in the streets of the SUNRISE neighbourhood were not moved for three consecutive workdays.
The market-based service of car sharing can exploit a huge potential for a more efficient, more flexible and still very reliable alternative to car ownership
a framework for successful car sharing
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From a municipality’s perspective, it is important to exploit the potential of car sharing to replace car ownership. Surveys (eg, Team Red, 2018) show that from the user’s perspective, the top three requirements are easy handling, reliability and proximity of car sharing stations.
Handling and reliability are the responsibility of the operator. Reliability is an important difference between station-based car sharing and free-floating services. To be a real alternative to car ownership, a car must be available when it’s needed.
Station-based systems allow both reservation in advance and spontaneous access. Pure free-floating systems only allow reservations a few minutes in advance, meaning you cannot be sure a car will be there when you need it. The forerunner city of Bremen shows that almost 80% of car sharing users have no car in the household: it replaces the “first car”. As the reliability of the car sharing service is such a crucial aspect for non-car owners, station-based car sharing systems have a significant advantage.
In general, good public transport and cycling systems are pre-conditions for independence from car ownership. Car sharing can replace the first car in households when people can do their daily trips (to work, to university, grocery shopping, kids to school, etc.) without a car. The 23,000 users of the local car sharing service represent about 7% of Bremen’s drivers. The Swiss cities of Zurich and Bern show that there is even higher potential.
