Car sharing complements and expands the range of mobility services

Car sharing, which serves the needs of people who only occasionally need a car, complements and expands the range of mobility services available to users.

The German automotive industry is a pioneer in offering free-floating car sharing where the vehicles are parked on the street, and users locate and book them via smartphone. This has brought car sharing new groups of customers. Automotive manufacturers have also made a decisive contribution to professionalization within the car-sharing market, and station-based car sharing is another part of the industry's product range. In this case, the vehicles are parked at fixed stations, where customers pick them up and return them at the end of the trip.

According to the German Car-Sharing Association, there are currently almost 2.9 million registered users of car-sharing companies in the country, around three-quarters of whom use the free-floating model. A total of around 26,000 vehicles are available in over 850 towns and municipalities. Car sharing is a growth market, but in light of almost 43 million driver's license holders in Germany, it only covers a small segment of the mobility market.

To promote car sharing as part of an overall multimodal offering, municipalities should take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Car-sharing Act by, for instance, creating special car-sharing parking spaces on public streets. In this context, it is also important to develop the charging infrastructure so as to advance the use of electric vehicles for car sharing. Under no circumstances should car-sharing providers be disadvantaged by way of parking regulations or parking fees. This would impair the economic viability of private offerings and not be conducive to achieving the goal.  

In the future, automated vehicles could enable novel uses for car sharing and thus offer additional potential for further improving road safety and environmental protection.