Confession: When I started sharing rides as a means to get around, it wasn’t entirely for a greater good, or for any particularly noble reasons. I wanted to get where I needed to go as conveniently, quickly and inexpensively as possible.
As ridesharing turned into peer to peer car-sharing -through services like GetAround andRelayRides– I still saw such travel as a means for efficient and affordable transportation. It didn’t immediately occur to me that what I was doing had broad and measureable environmental benefits.
How little I knew!
From Susan Shaheen, director of Innovative Mobility Research at UC-Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center, I learned that “One car-sharing vehicle can replace 9 to 13 vehicles among car-sharing members because their vehicles were sold or they postponed purchasing vehicles,”.
Dr. Shaheen’s research also found that carsharing “results in notable reductions in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) (27% to 43%) and in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (an average reduction of 34% to 41% and an average decrease of 0.58 to 0.84 metric tons/household).”
That’s not all.
To read full article, click here.