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Car-Sharing: Where and How It Succeeds
4.6 Conclusions
Car-sharing members report that car-sharing has significant impacts for
them. A more difficult question is how large these impacts are for the entire
community.
Probably the most profound effect on car-sharing members is the potential
for reducing the numbers of vehicles that they own. The biggest reported
impact was the ability to postpone buying another car, followed by the abil-
ity to sell the household's second car. Being able to sell the only household
car was a distant third in this set of benefits. Car-sharing should indeed
reduce the numbers of vehicles owned by car-sharing members. This in
turn should have ripple effects on the amount of traffic, air pollution, and
parking requirements within neighborhoods where car-sharing is active and
attractive. (But one focus group member said "I'm happy that car-sharing is
getting bigger and bigger, but I don't see cars coming out of my neighbor-
hood and going away, and I wish I did.")
Overall, car-sharing members make fewer trips by auto after becoming ac-
tive in car-sharing, and their total mileage driven decreases substantially.
These changes have positive environmental impacts, are associated with
increased transit use, and lead (to some extent) to an increased reliance on
walking, which in turn should have long-term health benefits.
Persons involved in car-sharing often realize savings in overall transportation
expenses. This is attributable to lower monthly capital costs, lower insurance
expenses, lower gasoline and maintenance expenses, and lowered parking
expenses. But many car-sharing members report that not having "the hassles
of car ownership" is an even greater benefit to them than saving money.
A wider range of more distant destinations becomes available to many
car-sharing members. In particular, car-sharing members report being
able to travel to larger "big box" stores as one of the key benefits that they
realize.
Lane (2005) suggests that car-sharing leads to shifts in environmental values,
awareness of costs, and trip-making decisions. The evidence that we have
seen suggests an opposite direction of causality: persons with high regards
for environmental values are likely to be attracted to car-sharing, as are
persons who have a strong focus on travel costs. Car-sharing does change
the calculus of trip-making decisions: car-sharing members are much more
likely to weigh alternative travel times and modes than other travelers. One
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