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his dossier presents a set of working notes and comments prepared by the author in fulfillment of his role as co-moderator of the carsharing session of the Second World Share/Transport Forum held in Changzhi China from 25 26 October 2011. The text is to translated into Chinese to facilitate rapid reference by the Changzhi audience and others in China. It has been prepared to support a contribution that Britton had prepared as comoderator to the carshare session, working by videoconference links from his Paris headquarters. The communications link between Changzhi and Paris failed just at the time of his final summary, and this document and an informal six minute video available here were prepared to compensate for that final presentation to the conference. You may find it useful to read it in parallel with the keynote address and conference introduction on the more global focus of sharing in transport, which you can find in the China Collection of the World Streets Reading Room here - http://www.scribd.com/my_document_collections/3279457
Dossier contents
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Closing moderator comments to Changzhi carshare session 2 There is nothing new about carsharing 3 Why do people carshare? 4 Two images that tell us much about the future of carsharing 5 The benefit to society of one less car on the road 6 The key is the city 7 Summing up 8 Annex A. The Paris carshare label ("Label Autopartage") 9 Annex B: The Seven Pillars of Transition to the New Mobility Agenda
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Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
There are more than 1000 cities and communities in various parts of the world in which you can obtain and drive a carshare vehicle this morning.
The 1990s served as a formative decade of quite a range of early pioneering projects that between them basically set the pattern that is most often understood as carsharing today. The basic pattern is what we might call "corporate carsharing", i.e., arrangements whereby a "carshare organization", either privately held or in some other public or local form, acquire a fleet of vehicles, set up their backoffice and IT support system, and to into the business of flexible sharing of cars with groups of carefully designated users. However it was the first ten years of the present century in which organized carsharing really started to take off. As an indicator of what we mean when we say "take off", two years ago we got together with a number of our best carsharing sources and operators around the world and carried out for World Streets a collaborative tabulation in which we ended up identifying more than one thousand cities and communities in which you could carshare any morning of the week. And we know for sure that that number has continued to grow steadily since. Thus, when we say that this is not an area of any great uncertainty, it is this large number of ongoing projects in so many places that make it a reality that we need to know about and integrate into our city's sustainable transportation arrangements. Bottom line: Carsharing is not a laboratory project, nor is it rocket science. If we are capable of learning from this rich background of practical experience on the street over these last decades, there may be some very useful lessons to be learned. However because of various forms of technological, organizational and institutional advances, the kinds of carshare operations that are likely to be most useful in China will be altogether new forms. But let's look at a bit more general background on our topic before starting to get into the strategies.
Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
The first and most important answer to that question is that they carshare because they want to.
1. Because it allows them a higher quality of life. Now let us not be nave, this is not to say that carsharing by itself creates this new quality of life, but it is part of a broader shift and, based on the studies we have seen, seems to be the primary reason for people choosing carsharing as part of their overall mobility package. After all it is their decision and they are making it for their own reasons. 2 For economic reasons. Right at the top of the list, people carshare invariably end up saving money for their overall transportation expenses. Money they prefer to hold for other uses. 3. Because it is more convenient. If you belong to a carshare organization, as opposed to owning your car, you will find that membership liberates you from a whole string of nagging obligations and less than trivial costs. Such as worries about car maintenance, buying gas, oil changes, repairs, insurance, parking (that is to say, finding a parking place and then paying for it, an increasingly big problem for many), parking tickets and fines, gassing up, and all the myriad worries that go with owning your own car. 4. Health: Studies show that people who carshare are on average notably more healthy than those who drive their own car all the time. Carsharers walk more, bike more, use public transport more, and move more under their own steam. More movement + better health. 5. A sense of civic participation: Not to be discounted. A certain number of carshare users, not such a small number in many places actually, tell us that they have moved from car ownership to carsharing because it gives them a sense of civic participation. Since they are using their cars less, environmental impacts are reduced and traffic is reduced by one less car; etc. The report a feeling of satisfaction that at least in one small way they feel they are becoming part of the solution, and not part of the problem. 7. Snobbery? This may surprise you but there are some who may do it simply because in expanding number of situations being a carsharer can be actually a sign of social status. That may surprise anybody who has spent most of their life living in a world in which many people, more often male than female, actually had a sense of even social identification with the car they own.
Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
Carsharing in China's cities Two images that tell us much about the future of carsharing
Annual cost of car ownership in the US (averaging anywhere from $5,000 - $10,000/year)
Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
Toward a New Mobility Agenda The benefit to society of one less car on the road
1. Carsharing reduces the number of cars that people need in that place -- freeing street space and
comes to scarce public space in all our cities.. (It is not all that hard to come up with a credible figure for the value to the community of one parking space saved. We need to know this number to make wise policy decisions. It is not a small number.)
3. As the number of cars on the road and parked in public places goes down, so too does the
relative cost of maintaining the existing transportation infrastructure. And equally important, this takes pressure off of local government to invest in expanding the existing infrastructure. These are major savings to the community as a whole.
4. Big savings on public investments in the car infrastructure frees money for more important
social uses: education, health, housing, research, job creation and more.
5. Fewer cars, less traffic, sets off a positive spiral of benefits (which are so numerous and
generally well known that I do not have to list here). But among them are such important things as cleaner air, fewer traffic incidents and fatalities, improved public health for the city and those who live there, and more neighborliness between carshare users.
6. Less traffic, less carbon. Less pressure on the planet so that we can leave a fair deal for our
children and grandchildren. . But there is a problem here that we need to be able to deal with for political and economic reasons. As things stand today we do not in most places know what is the value to society of these benefits. But this is a key number and can be estimated as an acceptable approximation. It is an important supporting research task that good approximations of these values be found and used in support of policy purposes. (I propose that this important task not be treated a one more PhD topic but that it be given high priority so that even very rough numbers can be generated with reasonable confidence without delay.) This is, in my view, a very big number indeed and until I see better I estimate the benefit of taking a car out of the traffic stream at 1.00 per km. not travelled. And if you play with this indicator or hopefully a better one you will see that it generates very large scale benefit estimates. Once we know these, the public sector will understand better why it is worth investing money in all solutions that can help cut back traffic (while not reducing mobility or quality of life for all in the city) And this is the policy context for carsharing.
Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
coordinate the provision of not just transport, but also housing, energy and other vital services. Tinkering with any one of these issues in isolation is bound to fail, as it has in the past. We can and must do better if we are to meet environmental challenges and improve the health, wellbeing and economic situations of all citizens.
2. Target improvements for people, quality of life in very specific, felt ways. And not new
infrastructure additions, increased vehicle throughput, or top speeds. A citys transport system is not a goal; it is a means to something far more important.
3. Packages of measures: The New Mobility Agenda is distinguished from the old ways of planning and
making investments by the fact that it will in most places be characterized by very large numbers of often quite small projects and initiatives. And by many more actors and participants. One of the main challenges of an effective policy will be to find ways to see these various measures as interactive synergistic and mutually supporting projects within a unified greater whole. This is a significant challenge to our planners at all levels.
4. A single systemic performance measure: "People manage what they measure". Chose a single
measure of system performance, improvement (degradation) which will somehow cover the performance of the transportation system as a whole. We propose CO2, but it may be either some other GHG indicator or, if you can figure it, traffic in the system as a whole. Once you have it insight, post it and make sure that progress is made widely known over the Web and other accessible public fora.
5. Plan for people: Get away from planning and decision making by experts looking at moving
vehicles, and not people. Reach out into the community, talk to and involve the many people who understand the issues and can help deepen the quality of the overall system and help you get broader public support for your performance improvements.
6. Target the short term: The problems we are facing in all our major cities are too immediate and too
grave to be allowed to wait. The short term the next two to four years needs to become the main focus for transport policy and investment. At least 80-90% of all spending should be digested to measures, tools and projects that are going to yield significant performance improvements in the next two four years. Once we have done this and achieved the very large results of which we are capable, we can in 2015 perhaps sit down and think about 2050.
7. Ensure success. And the final pillar, which should not be forgotten in a world in which political
realities and public opinion are not about to go away. We need to select and work with measures and tools which have proven themselves in other places, and that every act is directed to making sure that we succeed in all we set out to do. Success is critical! It is non-negotiable.
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Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda
New Mobility Partnerships at http://newmobility.org 8 ,rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris France Tel: +331 7550 3788 Skype: newmobility
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Changzhi Carsharing commentary/strategy by Eric Britton, World Streets & New Mobility Agenda