Car-sharing vs bike-sharing: A choice experiment to understand young people behaviour

Vehicle sharing has been proposed to alleviate congestion and environmental deterioration produced by the proliferation of private car traffic in urban areas. Even if transit is the main alternative, its spatial and time discontinuity coupled with lower comfort limit its use, particularly in developing countries with higher income heterogeneity. Vehicle sharing systems can be an effective complement for transit by supplying the flexibility offered by private cars on a public mode. They also promote less polluting vehicles and they free up circulation and parking space. In this paper we evaluate the demand for two vehicle sharing systems in Buenos Aires, Argentina: cars and bicycles. We contribute to the state of knowledge by analysing their interaction and demographic preferences within a developing economic environment. Young people are targeted as the main potential users of both services because of their aptitude to make use of mobile apps, which are important component of sharing mobility systems, and because of their low income, which facilitates sharing rather than ownership. Bicycle sharing has already been implemented in the city. Car sharing concepts (station-based/ free-floating, electric/ fuel) are proposed in a choice experiment, in competition with existing travel modes. Different scenarios with varying travel time and cost for each mode are distributed via online instrument to a sample of city network users. Discrete choice modelling with correlated random parameter specification is employed to analyse the data. Car sharing results as highly appreciated as private car, especially with electric vehicles, being the parking cost saving the major determinant of choice; whereas bicycle sharing lags behind transit, even for young people. Negative correlation is observed between car and bicycle sharing preferences, making it possible for both systems to operate simultaneously with little overlap.