Car-sharing in sparsely populated areas

octobre 2023

Centre d’études et d’expertise sur les risques, l’environnement, la mobilité et l’aménagement (CEREMA)

According to the French Transport Code, ‘car-sharing is the pooling of a vehicle or a fleet of motorised land transport vehicles for the benefit of users who are subscribers or authorised by the organisation or person managing the vehicles. Each subscriber or authorised user has access to a driverless vehicle for the journey of their choice and for a limited period of time’.

A car-sharing service is therefore a service that makes a vehicle available in a given area, with access made possible for a set period of time. The use of a vehicle requires registration by the driver, and may require the vehicle to be reserved in advance. Although not included in the legal definition of car-sharing, a number of criteria identified by the Association des acteurs de l’autopartage help to characterise car-sharing services and differentiate them from other forms of hire or use. Here’s how it works.

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1 OBJECTIVES OF A CARSHARING SERVICE

Setting up a carsharing service in a sparsely populated area can make it possible to :

Types of car-sharing services

There are several types of car-sharing service, with or without a car-sharing station:

In sparsely populated areas, local authorities tend to opt for loop carsharing systems, which are best suited to local needs and resources. The rest of this document will therefore focus on this type of service.

2 ORGANISING A CARSHARING SERVICE

Mobility organising authorities (AOMs) are responsible for organising carsharing services or contributing to their development. They can set up a public carsharing service where private provision is non-existent, insufficient or unsuitable.

Setting up a car-sharing service may also require powers over roads and parking, often held by the local authority or EPCI, depending on the area. In particular, the road manager may issue an authorisation for temporary occupation of the public domain for the parking of car-sharing vehicles.

There are several ways of managing the service:

In both cases (public service or contract with an operator):

If management is outsourced to an operator, the vehicles may also belong (in whole or in part) to the operator.

The choice of how the service is operated is particularly important in terms of its impact on the number of FTEs the local authority needs to mobilise.

A car-sharing service can also be organised by a private operator on its own initiative. In this case, the AOM can be involved in the project and, under certain conditions, contribute to the development of the service (technical or financial participation, mobility advice for employers, etc.).

3 - EXAMPLES OF USE OF CAR-SHARING SERVICES

The table below shows the observed use of loop car-sharing services organised by three local authorities. The data is purely illustrative, as usage can vary significantly from one area to another for a similar service.

4 - COSTS AND FUNDING

4.1 Costs

The fixed monthly costs of the service depend directly on the number of vehicles made available and the type of engine used. There is often a correlation between the number of vehicles available and the population of the area.

Investment can be reduced if the service operates in partnership with an organisation that supplies vehicles, or in partnership with local companies or energy associations that already have charging stations in the area. Other investments are to be expected, such as the installation of signage.

4.2 Revenue and funding

Car-sharing services are mainly financed by :

Service charges vary between €1.5 and €5 per hour, to which may be added a cost per kilometre (between 0.15 and 0.5 ct/km). Some car-sharing services can operate on a monthly subscription basis, which is less expensive for regular users (between €5 and €8/month for individuals and between €10 and €15/month for businesses for car-sharing services in less densely populated areas).

Some car-sharing services benefit from subsidies, in particular through calls for expressions of interest such as the AMI Tenmod from Ademe, which may have financed the implementation or launch of the service.

These grants can also be used to finance

Where the local authority is responsible for creating and operating recharging stations, the use of publicly accessible stations shared with those of the car-sharing service can also be a source of revenue.

5 - APPROACH TO SETTING UP A PROJECT

Setting up a car-sharing service requires preliminary studies to identify the needs of the area, identify the appropriate operating method, size the service, etc. If the service is to be managed by an operator, a call for tenders is required to recruit the operator, before the service operating agreement defining the responsibilities of the local authority and the operator is drawn up. In particular, it is a good idea for the contract between the local authority and the operator to allow a degree of flexibility to adjust the service after an initial test period, depending on user feedback and vehicle usage. It is also a good idea to provide for data feedback on the use of the service (usage rates, journey times and distances, user profiles, etc.), or even user surveys.

6 EXAMPLE OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A CAR SHARING SERVICE BY THE PNR DES GRANDS CAUSSES

Since October 2019, the Parc naturel régional (PNR) des Grands Causses has set up a car sharing service with the operator Citiz Occitanie. This example illustrates the process of setting up a car-sharing service in a sparsely populated area.

Studies

As part of this process, the PNR Grands Causses asked the Indiggo consultancy firm to carry out a feasibility study to find out what form of car-sharing would be most appropriate in the area.

Call for tenders

Following this feasibility study, the RNP launched a call for tenders. The operator Citiz Occitanie was selected.

Agreement

The agreement with Citiz was signed for a period of 3 years. The NRP has also become a member of Citiz’s Société coopérative d’intérêt collectif (SCIC). Revenues are shared 50% between the NRP and Citiz until the operating costs incurred by the NRP are reimbursed.

In addition, for this service, the fleet is made up of vehicles made available by local organisations (the Regional Nature Park, Saint-Affrique town hall and a local construction company). The NRP therefore has an agreement with Citiz and an agreement with each of the parties making a vehicle available.

Parallel stages

As far as communication is concerned, the task is divided 50/50 between the Regional Nature Park and the Citiz operator. A major promotional campaign was carried out by the Regional Nature Park: local organisations (driving schools, businesses, shopkeepers, etc.) were informed of the introduction of the service, and the Regional Nature Park set up information stands in front of supermarkets and at markets. The NRP also produced a clip for the cinema, passed on information to radio stations and social networks, distributed flyers and wrote press articles in local newspapers.

Experimentation and launch

The NRP car-sharing service was launched with four vehicles. The NRP wanted to expand its service and launched a new call for tenders. CLEM and Citiz responded, and Citiz was selected.

For this second phase, the NRP’s objective is to develop around twenty more stations: the organisation has also signed an agreement with a hotel that will make its vehicle available to the service. The business model will remain the same, but the NRP wants the vehicles to be more diversified.

Work has also been carried out to review the pricing of the service: the NRP wants the price to be the same for everyone.

Finally, thanks to this second phase, the NRP has also been able to organise vehicle purchasing pools, which have benefited the communities of communes and municipalities.

7 CONCLUSION

Car-sharing services can be an appropriate response for sparsely populated areas, complementing other mobility services integrated into a multimodal package of services for all the area’s inhabitants.

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