Electric and hybrid car use in a free-floating carsharing system

ABSTRACT

A free-floating carsharing system is a flexible way to provide cars to members in a limited area. This paper discusses the user behavior and choice between electric and hybrid cars in a free-floating system. We use Auto-mobile's transactional and Global Positioning System (GPS) datasets to analyze car use. We develop a binomial logit model to find the probability of choosing an electric car when there is a choice. The analysis reveals that travel distance has a major influence on this probability: electric vehicles are less popular for distances of more than 24 km. Cold temperatures and being a female also decrease the probability, while higher energy level increases odds. The spatial analysis shows a difference in behavior between both car technologies. Trips made by electric cars are less dispersed spatially than those made by hybrid cars.

Keywords:

• Carsharing
• electric car
• free floating
• travel behavior

Acknowledgments

This work was made possible thanks to the collaboration of Marco Viviani and Benoit Robert from Communauto.

Funding

Funding was provided by Communauto and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC RDCPJ # 474642-14).

Notes

¹ Yélomobile, retrieved from https://yelo.agglo-larochelle.fr/autopartage/fonctionnement-stations-yelomobile#!autopartage-yelomobile

² Autobleue, retrieved from https://www.auto-bleue.org/en

³ Autolib', retrieved from https://www.autolib.eu/en/how-does-it-work/service/

⁴ BlueIndy, retrieved from https://www.blue-indy.com/

⁵ Car2Go, retrieved from https://www.car2go.com/

⁶ DriveNow, retrieved from https://dk.drive-now.com/en/#!/carsharing/international