Car Share

About this pattern

Car shares are ways of sharing access to automobiles for a variety of uses. They can be organised informally or among community members, but the contemporary car shares make use of web-based platform technology to grant access to vehicles that are either privately owned or owned by a ride-share service such as Go-get.  The City of Sydney, like cities elsewhere, has allocated a portion of available street parking to car share programs in order to ensure equitable access.  Car share programs can work to reduce car congestion, carbon emissions, and demand for parking spaces by offering an alternative to private automobile ownership.

Pattern Conditions

Enablers

• Municipal approaches to management of parking resources can help facilitate use of ride sharing programs.
• Platform based technologies provide a way of coordinating ride shares, as well as assurance and regulatory oversight.
• Car sharing schemes work well in the city of Sydney where parking space is a limited resource, where there are several transportation alternatives and where school, work, shopping and other amenities are nearby.

Constraints

• Ride sharing can be cost prohibitive.  Like other platform-based enterprises, the model can be wealth extractive and counter-productive to a commons.
• Long distances between home, work, school and shopping may discourage use of ride sharing services.

Commoning Concerns

Carshare as social commons/transit

Access: Open to licenced drivers enrolled in ride sharing programs.

Use: Local transport; use in longer distance transit on trips where cargo also needs to be carried.

Benefit: Reduced fossil fuel emissions, reduced congestion.

Care: Ride share coordinating body.

Ownership: Various forms of ownership of different infrastructures/devices are involves (public or private ownership of cars, platform technologies, and parking space).

Car sharing provides a way of replacing private ownership of automobiles with shared use. While city dwellers benefit from an improved atmospheric commons, and reduced demand upon public infrastructure, questions remain around both the taxation and regulation of platform-based enterprises.