Promoting carsharing attractiveness and efficiency: An exploratory analysis

Carsharing has grown significantly over recent years. Understanding factors related to the usage and turnover rate of shared cars will help promote the growth of carsharing programs. This study sets station-based shared car booking requests and turnover rates as learning objectives, by which generalized additive mixed models are employed to examine various effects. The results are: (1) stations with more parking spaces, longer business hours and fewer nearby stations are likely to receive more booking requests and have a higher turnover rate; (2) an area with a higher population density, a higher percentage of adults, a higher percentage of males, a greater road density, or more mixed land use is associated with more car usage and a higher turnover rate; (3) stations nearby transit hubs, colleges, and shopping centers attract more shared car users; (4) shared cars are often oversupplied at transit hubs; (5) both transit proximity and housing price present high degrees of nonlinearity in relation to shared car usage and turnover rates. Findings provide evidence for optimizing the usage and efficiency of carsharing programs: carsharing companies should identify underserved areas to initiate new businesses; carsharing seems more competitive in a distance to a bus stop between 1.2 km and 2.4 km, and carsharing is more effectively served in areas with constraints in accessing metro services; carsharing should be optimally discouraged at transit hubs to avoid the oversupply of shared cars; local authorities should develop a location-based and geographically differentiated quota in managing carsharing programs.