Examining the Future of Carsharing in Metropolises: User Characteristics and Mobility Patterns

As nowadays metropolitan areas and huge cities are moving towards higher level of sustainability, new alternative modes of transportation arise. Among them carsharing (short-term automobile rents primarily within urban areas) seems to be most promising way to deal with extensive use of private cars. Such a shift from accustomed dominant mode of transportation goes beyond technology development processes and should consider the role of users in further adoption of new mobility opportunities. In aggregate, such users may form a new community consisting both from adepts of public transportation and car-owners. Therefore, there is a need to understand whether such a community has specific socio-demographic characteristics or demonstrate unique travel patterns that can alter transportation system further and change mobility level of wider urban population. This paper applies statistical analyses (descriptive statistics and discriminatory analysis) for application-based survey and operational dataset of free-floating carsharing service based in Moscow metropolitan area to identify user groups and their travel patterns. The findings suggest that carsharing users have similar mobility behavior as well as socio-demographic traits which make them a homogeneous group. Moreover, difference in mobility behavior between active carsharing users and inactive ones is highlighted. Given the observed insight, the research concludes by discussing the contribution of this new mobility group in development of future sustainable transport.