As cities across Europe strive to decarbonise transport, car sharing is a key enabler of sustainable urban mobility. Sharing cars can reduce the number of total vehicles on our roads, leading to a reduction in emissions – even more so when you replace them with electric vehicles (EV). It also leads to a decrease in car dependency and better use of public space. However, the rise in shared EV fleets brings new challenges, particularly related to charging infrastructure demand and energy management.
The case for car sharing
In the UK, on average, privately owned vehicles are often parked or go unused for 96% of the time[1]. Car sharing is one of the models that support the shift to more sustainable mobility, with each shared car on average replacing 27 private cars[2]. According to CoMoUK, 1.8 billion car kilometres could be reduced each year in the UK, reducing emissions by 297 kilotons of CO2 emissions per year.
The benefits of car sharing go beyond the reduction in the use of private vehicles. Studies show that people that use car sharing also use forms of more sustainable transport at higher rates than national averages. It has been shown that 36% of car share users also used a bicycle at least once a week compared to the national average of 12% in England[3]. The same was observed for public transport. Reports show that 55% and 53% of car share users also use the train and bus, respectively, compared to national averages of 9% and 21%[ (....)