Factors associated with round-trip carsharing frequency and driving-mileage impacts in London

Abstract

This study draws on respondents from Greater London within the 2016/17 wave (n = 2640) of Britain’s Annual Survey of carsharing users, which we enrich with external data from the 2011 England and Wales Census and small-area income estimates. Focusing on round-trip carsharing users, we present multivariate analyses of frequency-of-usage of carsharing vehicles and impacts on annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Published attribute effects from other geographic and contextual circumstances are compiled and compared (where direct comparison is possible) with the specific attribute effects that we report in this paper. We demonstrate a statistically significant link between customer satisfaction with proximity of carsharing vehicles and VMT impacts. Car ownership (both current, and changes upon joining a carsharing service) is shown to have intuitive structural impacts. We find that frequent usage is associated ceteris paribus with increasing VMT after joining a carsharing service, and that subscribing to multiple types of carsharing is associated with frequent carsharing usage and a reduction in VMT. Interestingly, we did not find any significant effect of household income on either frequency-of-usage or VMT impacts.

Keywords:

• Carsharing
• travel behavior
• frequency of usage
• vehicle miles traveled

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the two anonymous referees for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript, however any remaining errors are the authors’ sole responsibility. Author contributions are as follows: KG directs the Annual Survey, and MC oversees the fieldwork and data-compilation/processing. CW, SL and JP designed this study’s research plan. CW performed the numerical analysis; CW and SL drafted the manuscript. This study was not externally funded.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Notes

¹ The survey questionnaire is accessible via (Carplus,2017).

² UK postcodes are much smaller than US zip codes; each residential UK postcode covers ∼15 dwelling units.