by Natalie Chyba | Mar 15, 2010 |
Authors: Susan Shaheen and Elliot Martin Date: March 15, 2010 Abstract: Rising auto ownership in China brings significant urban and environmental challenges. Since China is still in the early stages of motorization, there are opportunities to introduce alternatives to personal vehicle ownership. The authors conducted a survey with 800 Beijing residents; collecting data on transportation patterns, automobile ownership, environmental attitudes, and carsharing response. Fifteen of those participants were selected to complete an in-depth questionnaire discussing how they would use carsharing services. This paper assesses the potential for carsharing systems within Beijing, China based on this exploratory study. While the results suggest that carsharing models integrated into existing transit networks could become an important mobility option within China’s rapidly growing cities, further study is recommended. View PDF....
by Natalie Chyba | Mar 1, 2010 |
Authors: Elliot Martin, Susan Shaheen, and Jeffrey Lidicker Date: March 01, 2010 Abstract: Carsharing has grown considerably in North America during the past decade and has flourished within metropolitan regions across the United States and Canada. The result has been a new transportation landscape, which offers urban residents an alternative to automobility without car ownership. As carsharing has expanded, there has been a growing demand to understand its environmental impacts. This paper presents the results of a North American carsharing member survey (N = 6,281). The authors establish a “before-and-after” analytical design with a focus on carsharing’s impacts on household vehicle holdings and the aggregate vehicle population. The results show that carsharing members reduce their vehicle holdings to a degree that is statistically significant. The average vehicles per household of the sample drops from 0.47 to 0.24. Most of this shift constitutes one-car households becoming carless. The average fuel economy of carsharing vehicles used most often by respondents is 10 miles per gallon (mpg) more efficient than the average vehicle shed by respondents. The median age of vehicles shed by carsharing households is 11 years, but the distribution covers a considerable range. An aggregate analysis suggests that carsharing has taken between 90,000 to 130,000 vehicles off the road. This equates to 9 to 13 vehicles (including shed and postponed auto purchases) for each carsharing vehicle. View...
by Natalie Chyba | Mar 1, 2010 |
Authors: Susan Shaheen, Caroline Rodier, Gail Murray, Adam Cohen, and Elliot Martin Date: March 01, 2010 Abstract: At present, local jurisdictions across North America are evaluating how best to provide parking spaces to carsharing vehicles in a fair and equitable manner. Some have initiated implementation of carsharing parking policies, and many continue to evolve as the demand and need for carsharing grows. Many others are seeking guidance on carsharing parking, based on the fledgling experience of other cities. This study documents the state of the practice with respect to carsharing and parking policies in North America. The study begins by providing background on the evidence of carsharing benefits and an overview of carsharing and parking policy internationally. This is followed, in Section Three, by a more detailed description of carsharing parking policies in North America that highlights key policy attributes, including parking allocation, caps, fees and permits, signage, enforcement, public involvement processes, and impact studies. In Section Four, in-depth case studies are presented for more advanced carsharing parking policies in the United States, including Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; and the San Francisco Bay Area and the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District. In Section Five, the results of a survey exploring the public’s opinion about the provision of on-street parking for carsharing in the San Francisco Bay Area is presented. Finally, in Section Six, key results are summarized to provide policy guidance to local governmental agencies considering the implementation of carsharing parking policies....
by Natalie Chyba | Dec 1, 2009 |
Authors: Tai Stillwater, Patricia Mokhtarian, and Susan Shaheen Date: December 01, 2009 Abstract:The use of carsharing vehicles over a period of 16 months in 2006-07 was compared to built environment and demographic factors in this GIS-based multivariate regression study of an urban U.S. carsharing operator. Carsharing is a relatively new transportation industry in which companies provide members with short-term vehicle access from distributed neighborhood locations. The number of registered carsharing members in North America has doubled every year or two to a current level of approximately 320,000. Researchers have long supposed that public transit access is a key factor driving demand for carsharing. The results of this study, however, find an ambiguous relationship between the activity at carsharing locations and public transit access. Light rail availability is found to have a significant and positive relationship to carsharing demand. Regional rail availability is found to be weakly and negatively associated with carsharing demand, although limitations in the available data make it impossible to ascribethe observed difference to user demand, random variation, or other factors specific to the industry. View...
by Natalie Chyba | May 1, 2009 |
Authors: Susan Shaheen, Adam Cohen, and Melissa Chung Date: May 01, 2009 Abstract: Carsharing (or short-term auto use) organizations provide members access to a fleet of shared vehicles on an hourly basis, reducing the need for private vehicle ownership. Since 1994, 50 carsharing programs have been deployed in North America—33 are operational and 17 defunct. As of July 1, 2008, there were 14 active programs in Canada and 19 in the United States, with approximately 319,000 carsharing members sharing more than 7,500 vehicles in North America. Another six programs were planned for launching in North America by January 2009. The four largest providers in the United States and Canada support 99% and 95.2% of total membership, respectively. A 10-year retrospective examines North America’s carsharing evolution from initial market entry and experimentation (1994 to mid-2002) to growth and marketdiversification (mid-2002 to late 2007) to commercial mainstreaming (late 2007 to present). This evolution includes increased competition, new market entrants, program consolidation, increased market diversification,capital investment, technological advancement, and greater interoperator collaboration. Ongoing growth and competition are forecast. Rising fuel costs and increased awareness of climate change likely will facilitate this expansion. View...
