Triangulation of two methods measuring the impacts of a free-floating carsharing system in Germany

This article reports on two different methods applied in the same survey (N = 1881) to measure the impact of the carsharing system car2go on other transportation modes in Ulm, Germany. The first method calculated how the mobility behavior of respondents would hypothetically be at the present time if car2go was not available. The second method determined the respondents’ past mobility behavior before using car2go. Confounding circumstances were corrected in both approaches through different mechanisms. Comparable methods calculating carsharing impacts have only been applied individually in past studies. This is the first study applying two measurement methods within the same survey, which enables a triangulation. As other influencing parameters were equal (e.g. sampling frame, nonresponse bias, mode of asking, point in time of the survey), the deviating results are assumed to have resulted from the different measurement techniques. The findings indicate a primacy effect (disproportionally high selection of first answer options) having influenced the first measurement and an overestimation of the impact on total kilometers travelled in the second measurement. The comparative findings of this dual-measurement could contribute to research designs of greater precision in future work on carsharing impacts.

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► Empirical study on the effects of a free-floating carsharing system (N = 1881).
► Triangulation of two methods measuring the same impacts.
► One approach calculates the hypothetical mobility behavior today without carsharing.
► One approach reconstructs the past mobility behavior before using carsharing.
► Effects resulting from the different measurement methods were detected.