Shared Mobility

Advances in the sharing economy – such as transportation network companies (e.g., Lyft, Uber) and home sharing (e.g., Airbnb) – have coincided with the increasing need for evacuation resources. While peer-to-peer sharing under normal circumstances often suffers from trust barriers, disaster literature indicates that trust and compassion often increase following disasters, improving recovery efforts. We hypothesize that trust and compassion could trigger willingness to share transportation and sheltering resources during an evacuation.To test this hypothesis, we distributed a survey to...

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...

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...

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...