Title: Carsharing and the Built Environment: A GIS-Based Study of One U.S. Operator
Publication Information: Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report
Report Number: UCD-ITS-RR-08-41
Author(s): Tai Stillwater, Patricia L. Mokhtarian, Susan Shaheen
Document Date: December 1, 2008
Number of Pages: 17
Price: $0
Abstract:
The use of carsharing vehicles over a period of 16 months in 2006-07
was compared to built environment and demographic factors in this
GIS-based multivariate regression study of an urban U.S. carsharing
operator. Carsharing is a relatively new transportation industry in
which companies provide members with short-term vehicle access from
distributed neighborhood locations. The number of registered carsharing
members in North America has doubled every year or two to a current
level of approximately 320,000. Researchers have long supposed that
public transit access is a key factor driving demand for carsharing.
The results of this study, however, find an ambiguous relationship
between the activity at carsharing locations and public transit access.
Light rail availability is found to have a significant and positive
relationship to carsharing demand. Regional rail availability is
found to be weakly and negatively associated with carsharing demand,
although limitations in the available data make it impossible to
ascribe the observed difference to user demand, random variation, or
other factors specific to the industry.
Keywords:
Carsharing, land use, built environment, GIS, regression