Shared mobility services versus private car: Implications of changes in everyday life

Abstract

Reducing private car commuting is necessary for decarbonisation of cities; meanwhile, new shared mobility services provide an alternative to cars for daily commuting proposing a transition of user behaviour towards more sustainable mobility practices. In this paper, we investigate changes in everyday life practices when private car commuting is replaced with a shared mobility alternative, integrating lightweight small size electric vehicles (LEVs) in a peer-to-peer shared mobility service. Through a living lab experiment, a long-term empirical study with 16 individual households in Sweden was conducted employing a mixed methods approach. Using social practice theory as an analytical lens, we interrogate in depth the process of change in users’ everyday lives to understand challenges in integrating shared mobility services into everyday practice, and the implications for transition towards sustainable mobility practices from a user’s everyday life point of view. The results show that a new mobility service can play a role in reconfiguring the meaning of private car commuting in terms of its related impacts, as well as increase knowledge and trust in sustainable alternatives. However, integrating shared mobility services in everyday practices showed that it became difficult to manage after six months, particularly for users with children. Our study demonstrates that current everyday life logistics, time affluence, and effort requirements are critical variables for enabling practice changes towards more sustainable mobility alternatives, such as a light electric vehicle sharing service. To enable people to reduce private car use, a more integrated and systemic design approach is needed for alternatives to become competitive with the notion of cars in everyday mobility.