The market potential for carsharing services in small to medium-size towns

Abstract : Carsharing (CS) is rapidly developing all over the world. So far, it has developed mostly in large urban areas and within the young population. It is still unknown whether CS might develop also in small to medium-size towns and among other age groups, such as the elderly. This paper illustrates a methodology to estimate the probability that a person would be a CS user on the basis of his/her generalized cost. Contrary to most of the applications found in the literature which focus on cities, the methodology is applied to a region : the Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) region, consisting of small to medium-size towns where CS is currently not offered. The methodology estimates the probability of becoming a CS user at individual level. About 3.7% of the population holding a driving license has a probability higher than 50% of becoming CS users. Such percentage is higher in Trieste (6.8%), the largest town in the region with about 200 thousand inhabitants but there is some demand also in the much smaller towns. Since in 2015 only 1% of the Italian population are CS members, we conclude that there is potential, unsatisfied CS demand in the small to medium-size towns. It is confirmed that age matters : the young to middle aged population have a higher propensity to use CS than the older population (5.7% vs. 0.7%). It is also found that the level of knowledge of CS is positively correlated with the propensity to become a user.