Sharing your own car is becoming more and more of a trend: This is shown by a comparison of different sharing concepts in seven European cities.
Editorial
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March 1, 2017
A comparison of car-sharing services in Europe shows: Sharing a private car is becoming more and more normal.
Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Paris, Vienna and Zurich: students from the ZHAW School of Engineering have investigated existing sharing concepts in the field of mobility in seven European cities. The results show that within the ubiquitous trend of the sharing economy, sharing one's own car in particular is gaining in importance.
Peer-to-peer car sharing (P2P car sharing for short) is a new type of sharing model: providers offer private users online platforms where they can share their vehicles with others. At least one such service is available in all seven cities surveyed.
The front-runner is Paris, where five providers enable a total of more than 2200 car owners to rent out their own vehicles to strangers via a corresponding platform. In Zurich, there is only one provider with a good 100 participants so far.
The advantages are obvious: "This way, the car is not just sitting in the parking lot and causing costs, but you can earn money with it," knows ZHAW student Christoph Sutter, who led the project in the Bachelor's degree program in Transportation Systems together with his colleague Wolfgang Thullen.
P2P model vs. organized car sharing In contrast to traditional car sharing, the entry hurdle for P2P platforms is low. There are no registration fees. "Pay as you go" applies on all the platforms studied. This offers users a great deal of flexibility and helps them stand up to the competition from organized car sharing and car rental.
The sharing offer on P2P platforms seems to be greater than the demand. "That's just as well, because the decisive point for the potential user is the short distance to a P2P car," explains Thomas Sauter-Servaes, head of the Transportation Systems course. In addition to the new P2P model, his students also examined conventional car-sharing offerings as well as bike-sharing. In order to be able to compare the offers situationally, eight different user groups with typical mobility behavior were created.
Tourists travel cheapest by rental bike and public transport For one user group in particular, the P2P model could overtake traditional car rental: Those who need a car for a week's family vacation drive more cheaply with P2P than with traditional car sharing in all seven cities. In Barcelona, Copenhagen, London, Paris and Vienna, on the other hand, a week's shopping is definitely worthwhile with car-sharing providers, while in Berlin and Zurich it is better to rely on P2P offers in this case as well. If you are a tourist on a city trip, bike sharing is usually a good choice.
"In most of the cities we looked at, a city tour by rental bike is cheaper than by public transport," says Wolfgang Thullen. On the other hand, public transport is cheaper than car sharing. "Nevertheless, for a tourist couple, a car-sharing offer is more attractive if the main focus is on comfort and the surrounding countryside is also to be explored." The free-floating principle - i.e., returning the car regardless of location - makes car-sharing providers even more attractive.
