Number cars in car sharing schemes

Cars used in car sharing schemes have been consistently increasing, indicating a continuous uptake of such circular economy business models.

There is currently no EU-level data on car sharing. However, in recent years several countries have started to gather data such as Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Spain and France. As shown in Figure 1, the number of shared cars per 1,000 people mainly increases between 2010-2023, except for the decrease in Italy between 2019 and 2022. The largest increase in the number of shared cars per 1,000 people is in Germany, with a 624% increase between 2010 and 2023. Netherlands has also been collecting data on car sharing since 2008, and between 2008 and 2023, the number of shared cars per capita has nearly tripled. However, these figures are not included in the graph, as the per capita value is significantly higher compared to the other countries.

It's hard to pinpoint exact reasons why carsharing has grown in European countries, but one clear factor is the shift from small, local initiatives to app-based systems. These apps make carsharing easier to use, which has led to more people accepting and using the service, helping it grow.. Besides that, policies play an important role in the uptake of car sharing - for service providers and for users of car sharing services. For example, support at municipality level can include providing dedicated parking spots or mobility hubs. From a technology perspective, the emergence of advanced technologies can stimulate the adoption of car sharing models in Europe. For example, the accessibility to electric vehicles might be an additional reason for some users to use car sharing services. This increased uptake of carsharing is not only reflected in the number of shared cars per 1,000 inhabitants, but is also confirmed by the increasing number of members of car sharing schemes.

Previous research suggests that car sharing has contributed to a smaller car fleet, furthermore, it is estimated that households who engage in car sharing travel less far, the average distance travelled by households with a shared car is less than half of the average kilometres travelled by households with a privately owned car (Schreier, 2018). A more recent study in Germany from Kolleck (2021) found that one station-based shared car replaces nine privately owned cars. However, there is no significant link between free-floating shared cars and private cars. It might be that shared cars are added to the car fleet in a country and considered as complementary cars.

Car sharing is an example of a circularity measure that facilitates transitioning from an ownership model to a service model and is one of the best-known examples of the sharing economy, which has emerged as a way to reduce the environmental impact and costs of using products, whilst maintaining (or increasing) accessibility.

Different types of business models for car sharing exist such as cooperative, business-to-consumer roundtrip and one-way, as well as peer-to-peer carsharing (Münzel et al., 2018). Therefore, we note that there are different definitions of car sharing which results in heterogeneous data collection.

In 2023, the European Union's passenger car fleet exceeded 256 million vehicles, with Germany holding the largest share at around 49 million. Italy and France followed closely, with nearly 41 million and more than 39 million cars respectively. Between 2018 and 2023, several EU countries saw notable increases in their car fleets, particularly Romania (up 26%), Lithuania (up 19%), and Estonia (up 16%).

Car ownership remains widespread, with many households possessing at least one privately owned vehicle—often underutilized. Car sharing schemes aim to optimize vehicle usage, potentially reducing the overall number of cars produced. These schemes can also mitigate the environmental footprint of car transport by raising average occupancy rates and encouraging the adoption of newer, more energy-efficient vehicles. Encouraging a transition from private to shared vehicle use offers clear benefits; however, it is essential that such initiatives do not draw people away from more sustainable modes of transport like public transit, cycling, or walking.

Previous research has proved some of these benefits of car sharing: reductions of mileage, reduced land occupation due to less parking needs, All these benefits are expected to lead to environmental gains including reduced greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, resource use and waste generation (Pauliuk, 2021). However, another study shows that the environmental benefits might be lower than expected (Amatuni, 2020). Currently there is no legislation or targets directly related to the car sharing.

Literature

Münzel, K., Boon, W., Frenken, K., & Vaskelainen, T. (2018). Carsharing business models in Germany: characteristics, success and future prospects. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 16, 271-291.

Schreier, H., Grimm, C., Kurz, U., Schwieger, D. B., Keßler, S., & Möser, D. G. (2018). Analysis of the impacts of car-sharing in Bremen. Germany, Final Report, EU.

Kolleck, A. (2021). Does car-sharing reduce car ownership? Empirical evidence from Germany. Sustainability, 13(13), 7384.

Amatuni, L., Ottelin, J., Steubing, B., & Mogollón, J. M. (2020). Does car sharing reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Assessing the modal shift and lifetime shift rebound effects from a life cycle perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 266, 121869.

Pauliuk, S., Heeren, N., Berrill, P., Fishman, T., Nistad, A., Tu, Q., Wolfram, P., & Hertwich, E. G. (2021). Global scenarios of resource and emission savings from material efficiency in residential buildings and cars. Nature communications, 12(1), 5097.

Loose, W., 2010. The State of European Car-Sharing, Final Rep. D 2.4 Work Package 2 momo Car-Sharing, http://www.eltis.org/sites/default/files/tool/the_state_of_carsharing_europe.pdf (accessed 30/11/2023).

INVERS Mobility Barometer Vol. 4 , 2024. European Car Sharing 2024 https://invers.com/en/press-releases/invers-mobility-barometer-reports-14-fleet-size-growth-in-european-car-sharing-market/

Definition

Number of cars in car sharing schemes in Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Spain and France between 2010-2023.

Methodology

Italy: The Italian Sharing Mobility Network collects data from members (operators, municipalities, research institutions and NGOs) as well as from non-members of the Network via an annual questionnaire. Data are provided on a voluntary basis.

Belgium: 14 car sharing organizations supplied data to Autodelen.net, a non-profit organization aiming to increase car sharing in Belgium. Autodelen.net reported this data in their latest annual report from 2021. Data for Belgium are not available anymore after 2021, only for Flanders.

Sweden: The figures are based on data from the member pools in Bilcoop, as well as from Moveabout, SAMBIL and Sunfleet. The data is extracted from the national indicators of Miljobarometern.

Germany: The CarSharing statistics for Germany are based on the key figures that the Bundesverband CarSharing eV (bcs) requests from all CarSharing providers in Germany on the key date of January 1 of each year. The data is extracted from the Bundersverband CarSharing website.

Spain: The figures are based on data from the BARÓMETRO DEL CARSHARING realized by AVCE the Spanish carsharing association. The Spanish Vehicle Sharing Association (Asociación de Vehículos Compartidos de España, AVCE) was established in 2020 in response to the rapid growth of shared vehicles in major Spanish cities. AVCE was created to promote awareness and use of car sharing in Spain, as well as to represent the collective interests of this emerging mode of transport. The Association is composed of the main shared mobility operators in the country

France: The figures are based on data from the national car sharing barometer realized by the Association des Acteurs de l’Autopartage (AAA), that represents nearly the entire car sharing market in France. Its annual report focuses on station-based and free-floating car sharing. Once a year, the AAA releases the national car sharing barometer, offering insights on fleet size, composition, user base, emissions, and regional distribution. The latest edition was published in June 2023.

Since this assessment is based on voluntary collection of data by organizations in member states, future collaboration with these organizations will be necessary to obtain similar data in the future. Furthermore, collaboration with organizations in other Member States should also be encouraged. Spain and France only started to collect data from 2020 onwards and Belgium from 2018 and Italy from 2015 onwards about the number of cars and from 2021 about the number of members. This increased data collection points to the increasing importance of car sharing in the economy. For Germany, data is available until 2024 but not for the other countries, and further action would be needed to improve the frequency of data collection and reporting.

Metadata

Sources:

Italy: Sharing Mobility Network. (2024). https://osservatoriosharingmobility.it/

Belgium: Yearly report car sharing. (2021).https://www.autodelen.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Jaarrapport-autodelen-2021_gepubliceerd-op-20-januari-2022.pdf

Sweden: Number of car pool members/users. (2019). https://2030.miljobarometern.se/nationella-indikatorer/beteendet/bilpooler-b3h/medlemmar-anvandare/

Germany: Jahresbericht Carsharing in Deutschland 2023/2024. https://carsharing.de/fact-sheets

Spain: AVCE BARÓMETRO DEL CARSHARING. https://avce.es/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BAROMETRO-CARSHARING.pdf

France: Association des Acteurs de l'Autopartage (AAA), Barometer National Autopartage 2023. https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.asso-autopartage.fr%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F07%2FBarometre-2023-v1.2.pptx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

Unit: Number of cars per 1,000 people.

Temporal coverage: 2010-2023.

Geographic coverage: Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain.

References and footnotes

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344921001920
^↵