The impact of free-floating carsharing on sustainable cities: analysis of first experiences in Madrid with the university campus

This paper contributes to the existing literature with a holistic evaluation of the impacts generated by FFCS on user behaviour in a specific population: university students. The added value of this research is that it provides the first analysis of the impacts of a FFCS (Car2go) system in Spain, and includes a comparison with previous similar research in the city of Hamburg. The methodology was based on a survey campaign of students (186 valid questionnaires), validated with over 330 sequential observations of available cars on the university campus. The results clearly show how the quality attributes of FFCS depend strongly on car availability and on the limit time and distance tolerated by each user to wait and walk in search of a free car respectively.