Good News for Car Shares

In a report with the (long) title of Car-sharing: a Sustainable and Innovative Personal Transport Solution, with Great Potential and Huge Opportunities, the analysts at Frost & Sullivan paint a pretty encouraging picture of the car-sharing industry. They claim that the global economic problems of the past couple years helped increase attention to car-sharing as a way to reduce transportation costs. Just in America, car-sharing membership rose by 117% between 2007 and 2009. According to their numbers, in 2016 there should be about 4.4 million members in North America and 5.5 million in Europe.

The environmental benefits of car-sharing are non-negligible: The two major social benefits of carsharing are fewer vehicles on the road and lower emissions. Research from Frost & Sullivan estimates that, on average, each shared vehicle replaced 15 personally owned vehicles in 2009 and carsharing members drove 31% less than when they owned a personal vehicle. These two factors translate into 482,170 fewer tons of CO2 emissions and less travel congestion in urban areas.

Even bigger reductions in emissions (both smog-forming and greenhouse gas) will be possible once car-sharing services start incorporating more electric vehicles in their fleets (EV technology will have to get better and prices to come down, but it's only a matter of time).

F&S also found that the economic benefits of car-sharing were substantial: "Frost & Sullivan research shows that an average car owner who drives 12,000 miles a year at an average driving speed of 30 miles per hour can save $1,834 (US) by shifting to a carsharing service. Commuters who drive less than 12,000 miles can save more."