01340874

Component

The number of carshare users has been growing around the world over the past decade, mostly in an incremental way. In this paper, the authors describe a pilot project that consisted of a substantial increase in the number of vehicles in a neighborhood with existing carshare services. The goal of this project, carried out in Nijmegen, a medium-sized city in the Netherlands, was twofold. First, it aimed to show that increased supply in car share vehicles could generate additional demand. Second, it aimed to explore whether the increased demand would also imply a diversification in the demographic profile of carshare members, as has been expected to occur by a number of authors. The results show that the supply-side approach can indeed be successful: carshare members increased with 27% in the pilot neighborhood, substantially above the growth number in the remainder of the city. There is little proof, however, for the diversification hypothesis. While households interested in carshare membership had a different profile from existing carshare members, in terms of both educational and income levels (both lower), the profile of the households that eventually became carshare members more closely resembled the existing members. Thus, while many households with low income and education levels were interested in carshare, they did not actually become carshare subscribers. The paper concludes that the challenge, for carshare organizations and local authorities alike, is to build on this increasing interest for carshare and find ways to stimulate those potential carshare members with low income and education levels to actually become subscribers.

01329018

11-0615

English

15p

2011

Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting

DVD

Figures (4) ; References; Tables (2)

Demand; Households; Market share; Pilot studies; Travel demand; Vehicle sharing

Club membership; Vehicle allocation (Car sharing)

Nijmegen (Netherlands)

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2011 Paper #11-0615

TRIS, TRB

Feb 17 2011 5:30PM