Environmental effects of carsharing

Results from the moses project

Sammendrag

This study shows that car-sharing reduces car mileage by 28-45% among private users, which is quite in line with other studies of car-sharing. Some people increase their driving when joining car- sharing (mainly those who did not own a car before), but the increase is rather small in absolute figures. Some people decrease their driving when joining car-sharing, mainly those who got rid of a car when joining. But all changes put together mean an average decrease with 3000 km per member and year in both Bremen and Belgium. On the other hand the use of public transport is increased by 1100 km per car-sharing member and year. Car-sharing cars are smaller and newer compared to the private cars they replace. Among the total fleet of cars, the share of medium sized cars is reduced by 40%. 65% of abolished cars in Belgium were from 1995 or earlier, which can be compared to the car-sharing fleets average production year of 2002 (these figures are es- timated to be relevant also for Bremen). Due to the above factors, car-sharing is estimated to re- duce CO2 emissions from car transport by 40-50% (among its members), and other pollutants are estimated to decrease even more than 50%. Car-sharing reduces the need for a private car and therefore also reduces the amount of cars in urban areas. In Bremen each car-sharing car replaces 7-10 private cars and in Belgium each car-sharing car replaces 4-6 private cars. This in turn re- duces the need for parking space by 90-135 m2 in Bremen and 45-75 m2 in Belgium for each car- sharing car.