Abstract
Major cities in developing countries are increasingly becoming motorized. Thus, effective solutions to address the negative impacts that come with rising car-ownership are needed as part of an overall travel demand management strategy. In developed and emerging economies, shared-mobility in the form of car-sharing is becoming popular as potentially low-cost and environmentally sustainable alternative to car-ownership. Yet, our understanding of car-sharing adoption and diffusion factors in developing countries is limited. In this study, we fill this gap by examining car-sharing adoption intentions among young adults aged between 18 and 35 years in Ghana, Sub-Saharan Africa. Using structural equation modelling, we model car-sharing adoption intentions based on a framework that integrates individuals’ perception of the benefits of car-sharing, attitudes towards the environment and technology, trust of stewardship in car-sharing, perception of innovativeness of car-sharing, travel expectations and socio-demographic factors. We found that pro-technology and pro-environmental attitudes correlate positively with perceived benefits of car-sharing. Perceived benefits of car-sharing, in turn, has the largest predictive effect on intentions to car-share. Other factors, including individuals’ previous experience using Uber on-demand taxi services, gender, education, driver’s licensure and expectation of comfortable and fast travel options, all predict car-sharing adoption intentions. While there exists an interest in both station-based and free-floating car-sharing services, more of the would-be users favour the latter than the former. Also, majority of the potential adopters (62%) would join a car-sharing service within the first 1 year of its introduction. An important finding is that dissatisfaction with existing public transit services underpins car-sharing intentions, implying that relying on car-sharing alone to meet travel needs, without a holistic strategy of providing quality and affordable public transit services, could lead to unsustainable outcomes.
Highlights
The transportation sector is one of the major sources of pollution, accounting for about 23% of total energy-related CO2 emissions (EPA 2015; Sims et al 2014)
In view of the aforementioned gaps in the literature, we explore the behavioural influences of user adoption intentions with respect to car-sharing in Ghana, West Africa
We found that perceived benefits of car-sharing correlates positively with both pro-environmental and pro-technology attitudes, suggesting that individuals having these positive attitudes are more inclined to agree that, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-mediated car-sharing service could be a good alternative to car-ownership, thereby helping to reduce car ownership, congestion and pollution, while bringing potential travel cost saving benefits, among others
Summary
The transportation sector is one of the major sources of pollution, accounting for about 23% of total energy-related CO2 emissions (EPA 2015; Sims et al 2014). Reducing private-car ownership, energy consumption and the overall negative impacts of the transportation sector on the environment and society are crucial in the transition towards sustainable urban futures. The rising popularity and acceptance of shared-mobility is linked to the emerging concept of collaborative consumption: a new paradigm of technology-mediated system of exchange which promotes sharing of underutilized assets such as the car as a low-cost and ecologically-sustainable alternative to ownership (Möhlmann 2015; Botsman and Rogers 2010). Car-sharing could reduce private car-ownership (Liao et al 2018; Becker et al 2018), reduce emissions, vehicle mile travel, per capita fuel consumption and demand for parking, thereby reducing travel-induced impacts on the environment and society (Cervero et al 2007; Rodier 2009; Firnkorn and Müller 2011)
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