Shared Mobility

Carsharing: A Guide for Local Planners

Adam Cohen, Susan Shaheen, PhD, and Ryan McKenzie
2018

Transportation issues can create seemingly no-win conflicts for planners, whether it’s dealing with traffic demand management, wrangling over parking requirements, addressing quality of life issues that accompany traffic congestion, or trying to reduce vehicle emissions to forestall climate change. A new “product-as-service” approach to vehicle use, called carsharing, is springing up in major metropolitan markets, smaller districts, and university campuses all across the country. Where the conditions are right to support carsharing, these programs can give planners another flexible...

Impacts of car2go on Vehicle Ownership, Modal Shift, Vehicle Miles Traveled, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Analysis of Five North American Cities

Elliot Martin, PhD and Susan Shaheen, PhD
2016

Carsharing is the shared use of a vehicle fleet by members for tripmaking on a per trip basis. There are four forms of carsharing in North America today: 1) roundtrip, 2) one-way, 3) peer-to-peer, and 4) fractional. In roundtrip carsharing, members begin and end a trip at the same vehicle location and typically pay for use by the hour, mile, or both. One-way carsharing enables members, who pay by the minute, to begin and end a trip at different locations—either throughout a free floating zone or stationbased model with designated parking locations. Peer-to-peer carsharing functions much...

North American College/University Market Carsharing Impacts: Results From Zipcar’s College Travel Study 2015

Adam Stocker, Jessica Lazarus, Sophia Becker, Susan Shaheen
2016

Researchers at the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC), UC Berkeley in partnership with Zipcar conducted a survey to better understand the impact that carsharing has on college member travel behavior, vehicle holdings and driving, quality of life, and transportation expense savings. The survey design was conducted as a joint effort among TSRC, Zipcar, and university representatives. The college/university carsharing market is a unique environment for both carsharing users and operators. Due to the particular living arrangements and travel needs of college members,...

Innovative Mobility Carsharing Outlook – Winter 2016

Susan Shaheen, PhD and Adam Cohen
2016

As of October 2014, carsharing was operating in 33 countries, five continents, and an estimated 1,531 cities with approximately 4.8 million members sharing over 104,000 vehicles. Europe, the largest carsharing region measured by membership, accounts for 46% of worldwide membership and 56% of global fleets deployed. The world’s second largest carsharing market, North America, accounts for 34% of worldwide members and 23% of vehicle fleets. In 2014, Mexico maintained the highest member-vehicle ratios (131:1), followed by 107:1 in Italy.

Shared Mobility: Retrospective from Caltrans Shared Mobility Workshop

Susan Shaheen, PhD, Adam Stocker, and Apaar Bansal
2015

On September 8, 2015, UC Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC), in partnership with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), hosted “Shared Mobility: A Sustainability and Technologies Workshop” at the UC Davis Conference Center. The workshop facilitated a dialogue among nearly 100 participants representing 28 organizations. There were 61 attendees from Caltrans, with 38 from Headquarters and 23 from various district offices. Caltrans employee attendees included planners, engineers, researchers, managers, and directors. In addition, nine participants...

Shared Mobility: Definitions, Industry Developments, and Early Understanding

Susan Shaheen, Nelson Chan, Apaar Bansal, and Adam Cohen
2015

Shared mobility – the shared use of a vehicle, bicycle, or other mode – is an innovative transportation strategy that enables users to gain short-term access to transportation modes on an “as-needed” basis. The term shared mobility includes various forms of carsharing, bikesharing, ridesharing (carpooling and vanpooling), and on-demand ride services. It can also include alternative transit services, such as paratransit, shuttles, and private transit services, called microtransit, which can supplement fixed-route bus and rail services. With many new options for mobility emerging,...

Mobility and the Sharing Economy: Impacts Synopsis – Spring 2015

Susan Shaheen, PhD, and Nelson Chan
2015

Shared-use mobility includes carsharing, personal vehicle sharing (or peer-to-peer (P2P) carsharing), bikesharing, scooter sharing, shuttle services, ridesharing, and on-demand ride services. It can also include commercial delivery vehicles providing flexible goods movement. Shared-use mobility has had a transformative impact on many global cities by enhancing transportation accessibility while simultaneously reducing ownership of personal automobiles. In the context of carsharing and bikesharing, vehicles and bicycles are typically unattended, concentrated in a network of locations...

Shared-Use Mobility: What Does the Future Hold?

Susan Shaheen, PhD and Matthew Christensen, MPL
2015

On Sunday, January 11, 2015, Professor Susan Shaheen from the University of California, Berkeley and Jeffrey Chernick from RideAmigos led a one-day workshop on the present and future of shared-use mobility at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting in Washington, DC. The workshop featured speakers representing the various shared-use modes, other private sector representatives, and public sector officials, and many topics were discussed.

Some of the highlights included: the role of integrated mobile payment; the need to integrate shared ride services with paratransit to...

Zero- and Low-Emission Vehicles in U.S. Carsharing Fleets: Impacts of Exposure on Member Perceptions

Susan Shaheen, PhD, Elliot Martin, PhD, and Apaar Bansal
2015

The California Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate, adopted in 1990, was aimed at increasing the sale and dissemination of low- or zero-emission vehicles throughout the California auto market. ZEVs include plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHVs) and all-electric vehicles (EVs). In an attempt to accelerate the exposure of ZEVs in the general population, in 2001, additional credits were allotted to automakers in return for placing ZEVs into transportation networks, such as carsharing fleets. This policy is set to end in 2018. This white paper presents the results of a study that evaluated the impacts...

Innovative Mobility Carsharing Outlook – Summer 2015

Susan Shaheen, PhD and Adam Cohen
2015

Since 1994, 83 carsharing programs have been deployed in the Americas — 45 are operational and 38 defunct. As of January 1, 2015, there were 20 active programs in Canada, 23 in the United States (U.S.), one program in Mexico, and one in Brazil — totaling approximately 1,529,811 carsharing members sharing 22,134 vehicles in the Americas. The three largest carsharing operators in the U.S. and Canada support 95.9% and 83.2% of the total membership, respectively. Only one operator provides service in both Mexico and Brazil.