Carsharing in the Czech Republic: Understanding why users chose this mode of travel for different purposes

Abstract

Carsharing is a relatively new and growing mobility service in many cities. Although there are numerous carsharing initiatives in operation around the world, it is still not clear how they will affect overall travel behavior. Understanding the effects of carsharing when combined with other existing travel modes is an important prerequisite for decision-makers for them to be able to positively utilise the benefits of carsharing services. Such new mobility services need to be incorporated into existing modelling tools to reliably evaluate the impact of specific measures and policies.The presented study provides an insight into one aspect of such models: the use of carsharing for various trip purposes by users with different socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes. We identify variables that should be used for computing the utility function for users with different backgrounds, perceptions, and preferences.In this study, existing users of a carsharing company operating in various Czech cities participated in a survey and their responses were paired with records of their real carsharing usage patterns. To reduce the number of variables, principal component analysis was used, mainly with attitudinal and perception questions. The principal components based on survey respondents’ attitudes towards carsharing and socio-demographic and other variables were used in logistic regression to identify parameters that most significantly influence various purposes for trips.The results confirm the hypothesis that trip purposes differ significantly among carsharing users and need to be incorporated into macroscopic carsharing usage models. These findings can assist municipality representatives and transport companies in considering carsharing as a valid and sustainable travel mode in traffic models and studies.