An Evaluation of Free-Floating Carsharing in Oakland, California

GIG Car Share is a free-floating carsharing system that began operations in the East Bay in April 2017. Similar to other free-floating carsharing systems, such as car2go and ReachNow (which later combined as ShareNow), members of GIG have access to a fleet of vehicles which they can book and unlock via an app. Once booking the vehicle, members can drive anywhere, but must park back in the home zone in order to terminate their session. The price of driving a GIG vehicle is charged per hour, per mile, or per day, and is calculated based on the lowest cost to the user. This report uses the results from a pre- and post-survey of GIG members in Oakland to measure the changes in travel behavior, with special attention paid to changes in personal vehicle use that occurred as a result of joining GIG. The pre-survey (N = 362) was conducted in December 2017 and the postsurvey (N = 221) was conducted in January 2019. The demographics of GIG survey respondents in Oakland are similar to previous findings from evaluations of shared mobility in other cities. The sample of post-survey respondents was younger than the general Oakland population, with 50% of the sample under the age of 34 compared to 36% for the general population. The survey sample was also highly educated; 88% of respondents have at least a 4- year college degree, compared to only 40% in the general population. Income distribution was relatively similar, though GIG survey respondents had a slightly higher income than the rest of Oakland. However, the race/ethnicity distribution was more imbalanced, where 60% of survey respondents were White, while only 27% of the Oakland population is White. African Americans and Hispanic/Latinos were relatively underrepresented; 12% of survey respondents were African American compared to 23% of the Oakland population and 7% of survey respondents were Hispanic/Latino compared to 30% of the population. Table 1 presents a distribution of demographics for key attributes.