The world of car sharing is evolving rapidly and the need for a broad overview of the current state of the European car sharing scene is becoming increasingly apparent. Work package 2, and more specifically Deliverable 2.1, is the starting point of the STARS-project and will serve as the basis for many tasks that will follow. In order to gain insight into future business models for car sharing, into the travel behaviour of car sharing users or into policy barriers and opportunities for car sharing, it is necessary to have a clear picture of the current state of car sharing in Europe.
That is why this deliverable takes off with a descriptive analysis of the main characteristics of the car sharing market in Europe. As many organisations as possible were screened through desktop research to build a database with basic information for every service. The grouping of these individual puzzle pieces resulted in a detailed report on car sharing in Europe, which includes 186 cases from 25 countries.
For the second part of the study, an online questionnaire was presented to car sharing organisations that are active in 20 specific cities in Europe. This in-depth study has a limited number of cases, but it can gauge more thoroughly to the current state of car sharing. New information about the shareholders, the financing and the service dimensions of the organisations were highlighted. Eventually 56 car sharing organisations out of 12 different countries participated in the online survey.
Both data sets and the desktop research and in-depth survey information were used to search for links between different characteristics of the car sharing organisations. The analyses led to a multidimensional classification of car sharing services in Europe. Using cluster analyses, all observed organisations were divided into six different profiles, based on their common characteristics.
This study will be available for download on the STARS website in the months to come.
Post written by Johannes Rodenbach from Autodelen and STARS partner.
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