Policy

Can Sharing Economy Platforms Increase Social Equity for Vulnerable Populations in Disaster Response and Relief? A Case Study of the 2017 and 2018 California Wildfires

Wong, Steven D.
Broader, Jacquelyn C.
Shaheen, Susan A.
2020

Ensuring social equity in evacuations and disasters remains a critical challenge for many emergency management and transportation agencies. Recent sharing economy advances – including transportation network companies (TNCs, also known as ridehailing and ridesourcing), carsharing, and homesharing – may supplement public resources and ensure more equitable evacuations. To explore the social equity implications of the sharing economy in disasters, we conducted four focus groups (n=37) of vulnerable populations impacted by California wildfires in 2017 or 2018. To structure these data, we...

Policy Considerations for Carsharing and Station Cars: Monitoring Growth, Trends, and Overall Impacts

Shaheen, Susan A.
Schwartz, Andrew
Wipyewski, Kamill
2004

Since the late-1990s, over 25 U.S. shared-use vehicle programs—including carsharing and station cars—have been launched. Given their presumed social and environmental benefits, the majority of these programs received some governmental support—primarily in the form of startup grants and subsidized parking. As of July 2003, there were a total of 15 shared-use vehicle programs, including 11 carsharing organizations, two carsharing research pilots, and two station car programs. Over the last five years, U.S. carsharing membership has experienced exponential growth.Despite this expansion, the...

Bikesharing across the Globe

Shaheen, Susan
Guzman, Stacey
Zhang, Hua
2012

Concerns about global climate change, energy security, and unstable fuel prices have caused many decision makers and policy experts worldwideto closely examine the need for more sustainable transportation strategies. Sustainable strategies include clean fuels, vehicle technologies, transportation demand management, and integrated land use and transportation strategies (Shaheen and Lipman 2007). Bikesharing—the shared use of a bicycle fleet—is one mobility strategy that could help address many of these concerns. In recent years, interest in this evolving concept has spread across the globe...

Vehicle Electrification in Carsharing and Transportation Network Company (TNC) Fleets: Current and Future Trends

Shaheen, Susan
Farrar, Emily
2022

This chapter focuses on two shared mobility modes — carsharing and transportation network companies (TNCs, also known as ridesourcing and ride-hailing) — and how they can incorporate electric vehicles (EVs) into their fleets. Shared mobility is the shared use of a vehicle, scooter, bicycle, or other travel mode; it provides users with short-term access to a travel mode on an as-needed basis. Carsharing (e.g., Zipcar, car2go) offers members access to vehicles by joining an organization that provides and maintains a fleet of cars and/or light trucks. Vehicles may be located throughout a city...

Planning for Shared Mobility

Cohen, Adam
Shaheen, Susan
2018

In recent years, economic, environmental, and social forces have quickly given rise to the “sharing economy,” a collective of entrepreneurs and consumers leveraging technology to share resources, save money, and generate capital. Homesharing services, such as Airbnb, and peer-to-peer carsharing services, such as Getaround, have become part of a sociodemographic trend that has pushed the sharing economy from the fringe and more to the mainstream. The role of shared mobility in the broader landscape of urban mobility has become a frequent topic of discussion. Major shared transportation...

Shared Micromobility: Policy, Practices, and Emerging Futures

Shaheen, Susan A.
Cohen, Adam
Broader, Jacquelyn
2022

Shared micromobility – or short-term access to shared bikes and scooters – provides a flexible alternative for households living in urban areas, households seeking first and last-mile connections to public transportation, and those without access to a private vehicle trying to access jobs and essential services. Up until the global pandemic, shared micromobility grew worldwide on a relatively steep growth curve, beginning in the early 2010s. Shared micro-mobility is a transportation strategy that enables users’ short-term access to a transportation mode on an as-needed basis (Shaheen et al...

ITS Standards: A System Management Perspective

Intihar, Chris
Hall, Randolf
1997

This working paper is part of a larger project examining how the State of California should respond to the National System Architecture (NSA) for Intelligent Transportation Systems. The specific focus of this paper is on the role of standardization in managing and controlling the transportation system. The paper reviews activities and processes used by standards setting organization in transportation. We conclude that national and international standards will continue to address the needs for defining common interfaces...