Carsharing: Business models, innovation and role of the decision maker

Individuals’ mobility needs are constantly increasing both in urban and in less-densely populated areas. Private transport activities are intensifying, creating unsustainable environmental pressure and absorbing a too large amount of resources, forcing to social exclusion the population segments which cannot bear the cost of private transport. Car sharing has proven to be a viable solution to alleviate at least partially these problems. Many different business models are used to provide the service. Organizational and technical innovations have changed the market, opening the supply to new providers and serving segments of the latent demand which were not reached by the traditional operators. The role played by the decision marker to support the development of this market in its various forms has been essential and will still be critical in order to guide a smooth transition from the private use of traditional vehicles to the shared use of autonomous ones. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on these changing characteristics of the carsharing market with a special focus on the Italian context.