Do sharing people behave differently? An empirical evaluation of the distinctive mobility patterns of free-floating car-sharing members

Characteristics of users and usage of station-based car-sharing services have been discussed in various studies. First analyses of the free-floating car-sharing model DriveNow have shown that member composition and patterns of use are not very different from those of station-based car-sharing schemes. Nevertheless, free-floating car-sharing members were drawn from a new pool of travellers, they were not attracted by existing station-based car-sharing schemes. This paper goes beyond these analyses and looks not only at the usage of car-sharing services but at the overall travel behaviour of free-floating car-sharing members (FFCS). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the specifics of this travel behaviour have been analysed based on substantial data that was collected specifically for this purpose with an innovative survey design based on a GPS tracking smartphone application. The goal of this study is to contrast the core group of members of the free-floating car-sharing model DriveNow (male, 25-45 years old) with people who do not use car-sharing. Key travel indicators are compared for FFCS and non-car-sharers (NCS) with a special emphasis on type and extend of multimodal travel behaviour within those two groups. The results show higher trip frequency for FFCS and differences in mode choice pattern. FFCS are more intermodal and multimodal in their behaviour. Shares of cycling are significantly higher, shares of private car trips are significantly lower for FFCS compared to NCS. The insights gained in this study can help cities and car-sharing operators to develop framework conditions and services that optimally integrate free-floating car-sharing services into the overall urban transport systems.