CORSO DI LAUREA IN

ECONOMIA EUROPEA

THE SHARING ECONOMY: THE

IMPACT OF CAR SHARING ON THE CO2 EMISSIONS

Elaborato finale di: Raffaele De Marco

Numero Matricola: 834365

Relatore: Prof. Marzio Galeotti

Anno Accademico: 2015/2016

“Sharing is sometimes

more demanding than giving.”

- Mary Catherine Bateson

!2

SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION 4

1. THE SHARING ECONOMY 5

1.1 THE RISE OF THE SHARING ECONOMY 5

1.2 THE THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 6

1.3 THE INTERNET OF THINGS 7

2. CAR SHARING 10

2.1 CAR - ADDICTED SOCIETY 10

2.2 THE EVOLUTION OF CAR SHARING 11

2.3 MAIN CONSEQUENCES OF THE CAR SHARING SPREAD 13

2.4 INDIRECT CONSEQUENCES OF THE CAR SHARING USE 16

2.5 CAR SHARING COMMUNITY: BLABLACAR 17

3. EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CITY OF MILAN 19

3.1 PROVIDERS OF THE CITY 19

3.2 CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY 20

3.3 MOBILITY OF THE CITY 21

4. ELECTRIC VEHICLES 23

4.1 COST SAVINGS OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES 23

4.2 IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT 24

CONCLUSION 26

REFERENCES 28

!3

Introduction

During my exchange semester abroad, which I spent in Germany in 2014, a journey

planned with other international students was going to be ruined because of a

Deutsche Bahn staff strike.

The trip was not canceled in the end, because we opted for a Car Sharing service

instead of the public transportation, which was not available in that moment.

At that time, the world of the Sharing Economy was hidden in the background of my

knowledge, since in Italy it was not something really common.

In light of this first experience, I wondered why I had never used something like this

before - I saved time, I saved money, and everything was more comfortable than

traveling by train.

I started gathering more information concerning the topic out of curiosity, driven by

the interest I started having for this services and their role in the society nowadays.

My first shallow considerations were soon followed by the consciousness, that the

diffusion of sharing behaviors does not only have black or white consequences, but

the phenomenon is rather complicated.

People who take part in this mechanism of collaborative consumption have the

opportunity to increase their savings, to reduce their waste of resources, and to

extend the life cycle of a product by reusing it, instead of throwing it away.

The scope of this paper is to analyze the reasons for the spread of the Sharing

Economy, with a focus on its effects against wastefulness and the impact of Car

Sharing services on the environment.

!4

1. The Sharing Economy

The Sharing Economy is a socio-economic ecosystem built around the sharing of

human, physical and intellectual resources. It enables different forms of value

exchange and is a hybrid economy. We are used to seeing the sharing of goods as a

common practice among family or friends, but now the concept of sharing has rather

become a profitable business model. In this new model, the firm does not deliver the

service from the top to the bottom, but allows people to meet and match their needs

in order to exchange and/or share goods, time, money, etc….

In this situation, the real asset are the people and not the goods, as it used to be in the

past. For this reason, the main activities of a sharing economy’s service are to build

and to manage a community, with whom a strong connection has to be established.

This connection is based on a vector system used to recall concepts such as economic

benefits, comfort, and efficiency of the service.

The motivation to match with other individuals depends not only on the economic

advantage, but also on the experience itself. New efficient services are available

every day more and more and the convenience of these services influences people’s

lives economically. This is possible thanks to the technological development, that

helps the sharing economy simplify the connection between strangers, making it

easy, immediate, and allowing users to accede to services in every moment and from

everywhere.

1.1 The Rise Of The Sharing Economy

We can consider the Sharing Economy as an offspring of Capitalism. These two

systems have to find their own way to exist together and finally generate a new

hybrid economy.

Before proceeding further, all the steps of collaborative consumption should be

travelled through again, so as to see how this is taking hold and for which reasons.

!5

The global economic crisis of the Second Industrial Revolution, during summer

2008, has been a tocsin. In different parts of the world, hundreds of millions of

families realized they had heavily indebted themselves in order to own a lot of items,

which can be defined as almost useless.

When the crude oil’s price raised to 147 dollars per barrel in the international

markets, the purchasing power collapsed and the Economy went haywire. Millions of

people lost their jobs and without a salary their only lifeline were savings, but in that

moment they realized, that they had none. On the contrary, they had huge debts - in

2008 the American families only reached a total debt of 13.900 billions of dollars. 1

This was the turning point. People started realizing, that the only way out of that

situation was to turn upside down the entire economic system buying less, saving

more and sharing their own possessions with each other.

A new economic movement was born due to the fact, that the current generation had

a strong powerful instrument, which made the economy grow fast and efficiently -

the Internet.

The Internet, with its collaborative and sharing character, enables people to find the

right contacts, with which they can share any possible useful object.

The Sharing Economy was born, a new different kind of economic setting more

linked to social than to the market capital and more dependent on social trust than on

market’s anonymous forces.

1.2 The Third Industrial Revolution

By referring to the Third Industrial Revolution, we mean all the production and

social economic transformation processes, which started after the end of the Second

World War in the developed countries of the First World.

Matthew Ruben. “Forgive Us Our Trespasses? The Rise of Consumer Debt in Modern 1 America.”, February 2009. (http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/debt/review.php)

!6

These processes were characterized by a strong technological innovation, which led

to the economic progress of the society.

Although the Third Industrial Revolution started during the ‘50s, it grew

predominately from the ‘80s, after the invention of Internet.

Nowadays Internet is wildly used and even smartphones can access a great number

of diverse services of every kind, and all these services are connected each other in

the so-called “super-internet”.

This phenomenon is now called Internet of Things and is one of the main reasons for

the spread and the success of the Sharing Economy.

1.3 The Internet Of Things

The Internet of Things is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and

digital machines, objects, animals, or people, that are provided with unique

identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-

human or human-to-computer interaction.

The Internet of Things has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies,

micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), micro-services, and the Internet. The

convergence has helped tear down the silo barriers between operational technology

and information technology, allowing unstructured machine-generated data to be

analyzed for insights. This whole process is able to improve the entire system. 2

We are moving towards a world where the machines we work with are not only

intelligent but also brilliant, self-aware, predictive, reactive, and social.

Information itself becomes intelligent and reaches us automatically when we need it,

without having to search for it.

Therefore, we can shift towards a preventive, condition-based maintenance, which

means fixing machines just before they break, without wasting time servicing them

on a fixed schedule.

Margaret Rouse. "What Is Internet of Things (IoT)? “, IoT Agenda. (http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/2 definition/Internet-of-Things-IoT).

!7

This is pushing us towards a zero unplanned downtime, which indirectly leads to cost

savings.

There are a lot of companies which are installing sensors all along the value chain, in

order to supervise and track the flow of goods and services.

UPS, for example, uses big data to control in real time its own 60,000 vehicles

operating in the USA.

Actually, the real focus here are data. Figure 1 shows the decline of the cost for

sensors and cloud storage. This is a clear example of how the technological progress

and the Internet of Things are reducing prices of services, thus facilitating our

connection with what surround us.

Figure 1 - The Declining Cost of Sensors and Cloud Storage 3

As already mentioned, The Internet and technological progress have a crucial role in

the success of the Sharing Economy and, as we have just shown, they contribute to

the reduction of prices. This is a relevant factor.

The Sharing Economy is able to give us an additional unit of a product or a service

with a marginal cost almost close to zero.

Marco Annunziata. "Welcome to the Age of the Industrial Internet.”, 2013.3

!8

This attribute is the key to the change of the capitalist system as we are used to

knowing it.

For example, if we think about Airbnb, the company which connects millions of

people all around the world and allows them to share their own house or to look for a

room, the action of adding a new user or a new room to their platform has got a

marginal cost of almost zero. The same action of adding a new room for a hotel chain

involves a lot of other costs as buying a new plot of land, building a new hotel,

paying taxes on the property.

The same model of Airbnb can be adopted also when sharing a car, a boat, or a

service. This is a real revolution because it will be easier to everybody to enter the

Sharing Economy, mainly thanks to the new upcoming digital platforms.

!9

2. Car Sharing

If private ownership is the hallmark of the capitalistic system, the private car is its

most emblematic good. It is often considered the most valuable private good and in

most regions of the world there are more people who own a car than people who own

a house. Becoming a car owner has been for a long time a sort of entry requirement

to the world of the property relations. The car is often regarded as the symbol of

freedom and independence, thus becoming in a negative way the right to exclude the

others.

However, the Internet Generation created a new concept of freedom, by introducing

the right of collective inclusion. Freedom is now increasingly measured as one's

accessibility to a network, rather than a market.

The Sharing Economy consists of a number of services, among which one of the

most common is Car Sharing. This is a service which provides people with a shared

car, thus significantly advantages for society and sustainability.

Car Sharing offers a wide range of services to users all over the world. Some of them

enable people to take a car, drive it as long as they want, and, at the end, leave it in a

parking lot, simply paying for the actual use.

2.1 Car - Addicted Society

Nowadays the estimated number of cars around the world is 1.2 billion. In 2012, the

average number of cars in Italy was 61 per 100 inhabitants while the European

Union's average was 51 per 100 inhabitants. 4

Owning a car means, that your car spends most of its lifetime sitting idle. These data

show, that up to 30% of our land and our space are used to store them.

We have got to the point in which we even build skyscrapers for cars.

"In Europa, Pochi Ci Battono per Densità Di Auto.”, www.alvolante.it. , May 2013. (http://www.alvolante.it/4 news/numero-auto-per-abitanti-italia-307003).

!10

All of this has a huge impact on the environment and, following this trend, the

expectations are not green at all.

The only solution to this problem would be to reduce the number of cars. However, it

is still worth taking into account people’s mobility needs.

On balance, the question is: can we put more people into fewer cars?

2.2 The Evolution Of Car Sharing

The first examples of Car Sharing have been developed in Europe at the end of the

‘80s - the first service ever of Car Sharing was launched in Switzerland in 1987. 5

They gradually grew up involving an increasing number of organizations in different

countries. At the beginning, Car Sharing was considered essentially an efficient

solution for two priority needs:

The first one was a consequence of the ecological ideals gaining importance during

that period. As a matter of fact, a quick answer was needed to limit the increasingly

negative consequences of traffic on the environment and on the quality of life in the

urban areas.

This is demonstrated by the fact, that among the pioneers of Car Sharing we find

people who cared about ecology and groups of environmentalist who believed, that

this alternative use of cars was a clear signal of evolution. In their opinion, this could

have led to a change in the citizens’ behavior towards the choices of mobility.

The second need was to reduce the costs for transportations, in particularly those

related to the purchase and the maintenance of the private-use vehicles.

More and more individuals or families, who didn’t want to bear this economic effort,

decided to distribute all those costs of owning a car by adopting a shared car system.

Willi Loose, “The State of European Car-Sharing - Final Report D 2.4 Work Package 2.”, Bundesverband 5 CarSharing e. V., Report. 2011. (https://ec.europa.eu/energy/intelligent/projects/sites/iee-projects/files/projects/ documents/momo_car-sharing_the_state_of_european_car_sharing_en.pdf), p. 14.

!11

These assumptions have initially created a supply from a lot of small organizations,

the majority of which was not exactly market-oriented.

However, the need to increase the level of efficiency and the market shares have

gradually brought to a concentration of the Offer and to the progression of more

complex organizational structures with a higher level of professionalism.

This innovative mobility service has been designed to guarantee customers the same

performance of a private car, in terms of reliability, flexibility, and comfort.

The main features of Car Sharing are easy access to the service and possibility for

everyone to use vehicles, for limited time lots and for a limited distance, in every

moment of the day.

This business formula is particularly convenient for those who use their car

occasionally and, at the same time, can count on a various range of transportation

alternatives.

There is a significant economic benefit for whom renounces to her car in order to

subscribe to a Car Sharing service. We have to take into consideration the fact, that in

case of need we always have a car available, without having to pay for the fix costs

related to the property.

In 2013 there were 3.5 million of people subscribed to a Car Sharing service all

around the world. A recent study of the Frost&Sullivan Consultants forecasts, that

within 2020 in the European Union there will be more than 200 car sharing

companies and, that in less than seven years the overall number of users will be 26

million. 6

Martyn Briggs. "Future of Mobility: Growth & Investment Sees Carsharing Become Mainstream.”, www.frost.com. ,6 July 2014. (http://www.frost.com/sublib/display-market-insight.do?id=291327683).

!12

Figure 2 - Car Sharing Industry Overview

2.3 Main Consequences Of The Car Sharing Spread

The return of the expansion of Car Sharing network is a contraction of the household

vehicles ownership among the users. On late 2008, the Transportation Sustainability

Research Center of the University of California (Berkley, CA) conducted a study on

the members of North American Car Sharing services (The survey was completed by

9,635 of Car Sharing members. After researchers removed respondents because of

confounding circumstances and misanswered questions, the final data set contained

N=6,281) asking about their travel behavior and about the number of owned

vehicles, before and after joining this kind of service. 7

They focus more on households rather than individuals owing to the fact, that Car

Sharing can affect the travel patterns of multiple people in the same household, even

if only one person in the household is a carshare member.

Elliot Martin, Susan A. Shaheen, and Jeffrey Lidicker. “Impact of Carsharing on Household Vehicle Holdings - 7 Results from North American Shared-Use Vehicle Survey.”, Publication, 2010.

!13

Figure 3 - Demographic Distributions by Country and Data Set 8

Figure 4 - Circumstances of Joining Car Sharing 9

Elliot Martin, Susan A. Shaheen, and Jeffrey Lidicker. “Impact of Carsharing on Household Vehicle Holdings - 8 Results from North American Shared-Use Vehicle Survey.”, Publication, 2010, p. 153

Elliot Martin, Susan A. Shaheen, and Jeffrey Lidicker. “Impact of Carsharing on Household Vehicle Holdings - 9 Results from North American Shared-Use Vehicle Survey.”, Publication, 2010, p. 152

!14

Figure 5 - Profile and Statistical Evaluation of Change in Vehicle Holdings 10

Figure 3, 4 and 5 show the results of the survey used for this study - Car Sharing

lowers the total number of vehicles owned by members.

Across the sample, the number of vehicles owned before Car Sharing was 2,968,

which translates to 0.47 vehicles per household. After Car Sharing, the numbers

decreased to 1,507 vehicles, equal to 0.24 vehicles per household.

The difference between these means (-0.23) is statistically significant with a

confidence level of 99%.

It is worth underlining the fact, that 80% of the sample owned no vehicle after

joining Car Sharing.

There was also a 62% of the sample which owned no car before joining this service.

We can suppose, that Car Sharing could become an alternative choice when it comes

the time to decide whether to buy a car or not, even if it is hard to measure the

decision of not purchasing something.

Car Sharing does not only reduce the number of vehicles in our streets, but it has a

consequent impact on the CO2 emissions.

Elliot Martin, Susan A. Shaheen, and Jeffrey Lidicker. “Impact of Carsharing on Household Vehicle Holdings - 10 Results from North American Shared-Use Vehicle Survey.”, Publication, 2010, p. 154

!15

Frost&Sullivan Consultants research in 2009 estimates that, on average, one shared

vehicle replaced 15 private cars, and that Car Sharing members decrease their driving

time by 31% compared to the time when they owned a personal vehicle. These two

factors can be translated into 482,170 fewer tons of CO2 emissions and less level

travel congestion in the urban area.

Last but not least, the rapid progress of Car Sharing is a double-edged sword to the

car industry. On the one hand, it means more sale opportunities, because Car Sharing

companies are seeking vehicles, which are fuel-efficient, low-emission, low-priced,

and trendy. On the other hand, Car Sharing vehicles replace those which are private

owned, therefore we can expect a decline in new vehicles sales.

2.4 Indirect Consequences Of The Car Sharing Use

As mentioned before, the study conducted by the Transportation Sustainability

Research Center of the University of California used the survey also for investigating

the Car Sharing members’ behavior.

Data of the two metrics (average weekly hours and average weekly round trips),

reported by Figure 6, were highly correlated in magnitude and change.

Both of them provided an evaluation of the direction of change in non-motorized or

public transit use.

Figure 6 shows how respondents changed their travel habits for both of the

measurements. For each shift by travel mode and measure, the statistical significance

of the shift is defined by the Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test . 11

This could be an interesting perspective of the overall changes regarding the

frequency of usage of public transports and non-motorized modes.

The Wilcoxon signed-rank test is a non-parametric statistical hypothesis test used when comparing two related 11 samples, matched samples, or repeated measurements on a single sample to assess whether their population mean ranks differ. It can be used as an alternative to the paired Student's t-test, t-test for matched pairs, or the t-test for dependent samples when the population cannot be assumed to be normally distributed.

!16

Figure 6 - Aggregate Shift in Public Transit and Non-Motorized Modes 12

The data, statistically significant with at the 99% confidence level, indicate a drop in

the use of train and bus. Meanwhile, we observe an increase of walking and use of

bikes. The shift towards cycling was the largest in overall magnitude, with nearly

three times as many members increasing their cycling over those decreasing.

From these results, we could suppose a raising effect on consciousness of Car

Sharing members. It is hard to define whether this consciousness is due to an

ecological ideal or to cost savings. However, whatever the reason, we obtain an

ecological benefit from this behavior.

2.5 Car Sharing Community: Blablacar

The Car Sharing services discussed above are services offered by firms, which allow

people to drive cars within a limited area, usually big cities.

However, there is also a service which gives the opportunity to people to share their

own private car with others for long-distance journeys: BlaBlaCar.

I decided to dedicate this small paragraph to the service of BlaBlaCar, because data

show, that it is considerably contributing to the decrease of CO2 emissions

worldwide, especially in Europe (maybe even more than Car Sharing services).

Elliot Martin, and Susan A. Shaheen. "The Impact of Carsharing on Public Transit and Non-Motorized Travel: An 12

Exploration of North American Carsharing Survey Data.”, November 2011. p. 2101

!17

BlaBlaCar can be considered the purest version of the Sharing Economy and, with

more than 30 million members in 22 countries, it is the world largest community of

car sharing journeys.

It was founded in Paris in 2006, with the original name of Covoiturage.fr, and it

asserted itself in few years as the new way of transportation, especially among young

people. Simultaneously, in Italy , in February 2010 Postoinauto.it was born from the

idea of a group of students who were inspired by their shared trips abroad, in

particularly in France and in Germany.

In 2012, the great success of both platforms drove Postoinauto.it to merge with

Covoiturage.fr (which in the meanwhile became international) and the new company

was named BlaBlaCar.

Of course, all these shared journeys have a significant impact on the environment.

Today the company counts more than 3 billion kilometers shared and about 1 million

Tons of CO2 and 500.000 tons of fuel saved in the last 12 months. 13

"Chi Siamo." BlaBlaCar. Accessed May 2016. (https://www.blablacar.it/blog/chisiamo).13

!18

3. Empirical Analysis Of The City Of Milan

Throughout my bachelor studies in Milan, I found convenient to use the service of

public transportation offered by the city. Gradually I saw the growth and the spread

of the Car Sharing services side by side to ATM’s. This is the reason why I decided

to consider it in my paper.

I had the opportunity to meet Angelo Pascale, Head of the Public Local

Transportation Sector and Financial Economic Support at the City of Milan, and

Valentino Sevino, Head of Mobility Planning Area at AMAT (Environmental

Mobility and Territory Agency).

Thanks to the information collected during this meeting, in this chapter I am going to

analyze the current situation of the City of Milan with regard to Car Sharing and its

evolution over the last years.

3.1 Providers Of The City

The first Car Sharing service in Milan, GuidaMi, was launched in 2004 on the base

of a pilot project created by Legambiente.

GuidaMi is now a 100% property of ATM and it is part of the new national network

project GirACI, managed by ACI Global.

This service distinguishes itself from others: it is a station based service where

people can book in advance the vehicles, pick it up and bring it back to the same

place.

It is a niche service, that is the reason why it only has 6,000 members and 120

vehicles.

In 2013, after a combined study of the City of Milan and AMAT, the new concept of

free floating Car Sharing has been developed, which gave people the chance to pick a

car and leave it in the parking areas of the streets, as a common vehicle.

!19

At the moment there are four main providers, which are actively contributing to the

supply of this service:

- Enjoy, launched in Milan in December 2013, is today the most used provider with

200 thousand members and 458 vehicles present in the city. 14

- Car2Go, the German company, which started its activity in Milan in August 2013

now counts 120 thousand members and 700 vehicles. 15

- E-Vai, the first ecological Car Sharing service in Lombardy, offers to its members

more than 100 vehicles, more than two third of them powered by electricity. 16

- SHARE’NGO, the new mobility service, that offers two-seater powered by

electricity. It has now 15 thousand members. 17

Until last November, there was also another provider, Twist, which announced the

suspension of their services until further notice.

3.2 Customer Satisfaction Survey

Recently, the Car Sharing members of all the providers of the city took part in a

survey, aiming at analyzing the quality of the service and the behavior of members

after their subscription.

The 11% of the total number of members gave up one car, and the 8% claimed the

intention to do the same.

Enjoy. Accessed May 2016. (https://enjoy.eni.com/it/milano/home)14

Car2Go. Accessed May 2016. (https://www.car2go.com/it/milano)15

E-Vai. Accessed May 2016. (https://www.e-vai.com)16

SHARE’NGO. Accessed May 2016. (http://www.sharengo.it)17

!20

The vehicles that have been given away by members, probably had a huge impact on

the environment, whereas the Car Sharing services offer 2,000 vehicles with a low

impact on the environment since the 20% of them are powered by electricity and the

rest of them is EURO 5 or EURO 6.

Another relevant information which has been underlined by the survey is the fact,

that the majority of the members subscribed to the public transportation service of

Milan at the same moment or soon after subscribing to a Car Sharing service.

Those who do not own private vehicles anymore make a rational usage of the mode

of transportation, interchanging Car Sharing and public transport.

In this scenario individuals cover fewer kilometers by car than before. Sometimes

Car Sharing members use public transport to get closer to a shared car.

3.3 Mobility Of The City

In 2013 in Milan there were 5.25 million of daily travels, 57% of them had their

origin and finish inside the city. 18

Nowadays the total number of travels is around 5.6 million, but the share of inside

journeys decreased to the 54%. The 34% of this 3 million travels is covered by using

a private vehicle. Within this last percentage are included the 9,500 daily travels

covered using a Car Sharing service, with an average duration of 20 minutes and

an average distance of 5 kilometers.

Even if this last share is really low, it has a really good growth perspective, since it

spread really fast over these last 2 years. This happened because this service can

reach those areas of the city with a low supply of public transportation services.

Stefano Riazzola. “Piano Urbano Mobilità Sostenibile Milano, Valutazione Ambientale Strategica - Rapporto 18 Ambientale.”, February 2015. p. 102

!21

In 2013 the number of cars registered in Milan was around 701,000, that means

almost 52 cars per 100 inhabitants. The average of the city is lower than the national,

however, considering the other European cities commensurate to Milan (number of

cars per 100 inhabitants: Berlin 29, Madrid 48, Paris 25, Amsterdam 25, London

31) , its average is still too high. 19

Over the last 3 years the number of car registrations in Milan decreased by about

30,000 units, but it is not easy to demonstrate what caused it.

However, we can foresee, that the city of Milan is moving towards a more

sustainable concept of transportation system, by offering to its citizens diverse

alternatives to the private vehicles.

Stefano Riazzola. “Piano Urbano Mobilità Sostenibile Milano, Valutazione Ambientale Strategica - Rapporto 19 Ambientale.”, February 2015. p. 41

!22

4. Electric Vehicles

In the previous chapter, I mentioned providers of Car Sharing which offer their

services, partially of fully, with electrically powered vehicles.

The use of alternative energy cars in Car Sharing is getting increasingly common - it

is possible to find at least one Car Sharing provider who offers electric vehicles in

every city with Car Sharing. This kind of vehicles reduce the impact of CO2

emissions and have different costs.The aim of the following pages is to compare the

effect produced by the use of electric vehicles instead of the traditional ones.

4.1 Cost Savings Of Electric Vehicles

The first analysis of the comparison between electric cars and carbon fossil cars is

related to the cost of fuel. Figure 7 shows the money saved every 10,000 miles

covered using a 100% electric car (e.g. Nissan Leaf) instead of a 28 MPG petrol car 20

(e.g. Toyota Camry).

Figure 7 - Fuel Savings: Electric Vs. Petrol

28 MPG (miles per gallon) = 7.4 km/L 20

!23

The saving, of course, changes from country to country and depends on the price of

fuel in that country. From the point of view of a Car Sharing provider, the use of

electric vehicles instead of petrol’s would be translated into a reduction of its fixed

costs, and it would create the possibility to offer the service for a lower price to his

members. This is for sure an incentive for people to use this service, because they see

in it a chance to get higher savings, without reducing the benefits.

With regard to the benefits, the use of an electric car allows entering those areas of

the city where the circulation is forbidden to petrol vehicles.

4.2 Impact On The Environment

It is wrong to believe that an electric vehicle has a zero impact on the emissions of

CO2. We have to consider a few variables which actually produce pollution, even

from electric vehicles.

Figure 8 - Vehicle Emissions: Petrol Vs. Electric

!24

Figure 8 shows a comparison between different kinds of petrol and electric cars.

There is an evident difference between the emission of an average electric car with

its 160g. of CO2/km and an average petrol car which emits 203g. of CO2/km.

If we elaborate these data for the City of Milan, in which there are 9,500 daily

journeys with a Car Sharing service, it is possible to create two different scenarios:

In the first scenario, all the 9,500 journeys are covered by petrol cars.

This means, that with an average of 5km per journey there are 9.6425 Tons of CO2

generated in total.

In the second one, the journeys are covered by electric vehicles. Using the previous

data, the Tons of CO2 produced are 7.6, instead.

In summary, if the Car Sharing services were offered fully by electric vehicles, more

than 2 Tons of CO2 would be saved every day.

!25

Conclusion

The last period of the financial crisis drove individuals to change their daily habits.

Data confirm an increasing trend in savings - people spend less money than before.

This fact can be considered as the main reason for the spread of the Sharing

Economy and its services, such as Car Sharing.

Even though ecological ideals represented the inspiration for this project in the first

place, the need for cost savings was the strongest contributor to its success.

Comparing the American study with the analysis of the City of Milan, it is possible

to detect a significant similarity in Car Sharing members’ behaviors.

In both cases there is a percentage of members who got rid of their car in the same

moment or soon after the subscription to the service.

Members make a rational use of the transportation services available to them. They

have changed their passive role of consumers, becoming prosumers, since they are

now actively involved in the process of creation, production, distribution, and

consumption of a product.

A positive externality is generated from the Car Sharing services, this is the reduction

of the number of circulating cars and consequent reduction of CO2 emissions.

Empirical data affirm that 1 shared car can substitute 15 private cars and if this

shared vehicle is electric, there are even more savings in terms of CO2.

If people collaborated with each other, there would be a decrease in traffic

congestion, as there are a lot of possible similar routes which could be combined in

fewer. This would translate into less traffic volume, less time spent driving, fewer

cars in the streets, and less CO2 emissions, of course.

!26

Figure 9 - City Of San Francisco, Before Car Sharing Vs. After Car Sharing 21

Figure 9 shows the situation in part of the City of San Francisco (CA) by comparing

the traffic volume before and after the introduction of Car Sharing services.

The decrease in the traffic volume is more than evident, since all the yellow areas

have disappeared.

I personally think that the Sharing Economy, and especially Car Sharing, will move

our society to a more sustainable life style, in which citizens are more sensitive to

environmental problems, consume less, share more, and waste almost zero.

City of San Francisco. Accessed May 2016. (http://sfgov.org)21

!27

References

Angelo Pascale, and Valentino Sevino. "Car Sharing and Mobility of the City of

Milan.”, Interview by author, May 2016.

Anne-Sophie Novel, "The Sharing Economy: Make It Sustainable.”, July 2014.

(http://www.iddri.org/Publications/Collections/Analyses/ST0314_DDASN_sharing

economy.pdf)

BlaBlaCar (https://www.blablacar.it/, Accessed May 2016.)

Car2Go (https://www.car2go.com/it/milano, Accessed May 2016.)

City of San Francisco (http://sfgov.org, Accessed May 2016.)

Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (https://www.gov.uk/

government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs, Accessed

May 2016.)

E-Vai (https://www.e-vai.com, Accessed May 2016.)

Edoardo Croci, "Mobilità Sostenibile.”, January 2016.

Elliot Martin, and Susan A. Shaheen, "The Impact of Carsharing on Public Transit

and Non-Motorized Travel: An Exploration of North American Carsharing Survey

Data.”, November 2011.

Elliot Martin, Susan A. Shaheen, and Jeffrey Lidicker, “Impact of Carsharing on

Household Vehicle Holdings - Results from North American Shared-Use Vehicle

Survey.”, Publication, 2010.

!28

Enjoy (https://enjoy.eni.com/it/milano/home, Accessed May 2016.)

Harald Heinrichs, "Sharing Economy: A Potential New Pathway to Sustainability.”,

December 2013. (http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/93652105/sharing-

economy-potential-new-pathway-sustainability)

IEA - Energy Prices and Taxes (http://www.iea.org/, Accessed May 2016.)

“In Europa, Pochi Ci Battono per Densità Di Auto.”, www.alvolante.it. , May 2013.

(http://www.alvolante.it/news/numero-auto-per-abitanti-italia-307003)

Insa Eekhoff, Rebecca J. Heywood, and Kristin Eichwede, "The Role of Open

Data in Sustainable Transport”, May 2015. (http://www.sutp.org/files/contents/

documents/News/TheRoleofOpenDatainSustainableTransport_GIZ_28092015.pdf)

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (http://www.ipcc.ch/, Accessed May

2016.)

Marco Annunziata, "Welcome to the Age of the Industrial Internet.”, 2013.

Margaret Rouse, "What Is Internet of Things (IoT)?”, IoT Agenda. (http://

internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/definition/Internet-of-Things-IoT)

Martyn Briggs, "Future of Mobility: Growth & Investment Sees Carsharing Become

Mainstream.”, www.frost.com., July 2014. (http://www.frost.com/sublib/display-

market-insight.do?id=291327683)

!29

Matthew Ruben, “Forgive Us Our Trespasses? The Rise of Consumer Debt in

Modern America.”, February 2009. (http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/debt/

review.php)

SHARE'NGO (http://www.sharengo.it, Accessed May 2016.)

Stefano Riazzola, “Piano Urbano Mobilità Sostenibile Milano, Valutazione

Ambientale Strategica - Rapporto Ambientale.”, February 2015.

Susan A. Shaheen, "Mobility and the Sharing Economy.”, Elsevier.

(www.elsevier.com/locate/tranpol)

Willi Loose, “The State of European Car-Sharing - Final Report D 2.4 Work

Package 2.”, Bundesverband CarSharing e. V., Report, 2011. (https://ec.europa.eu/

energy/intelligent/projects/sites/iee-projects/files/projects/documents/momo_car-

sharing_the_state_of_european_car_sharing_en.pdf)

!30