How Car Sharing affects Health
Carsharing may reduce air pollution (and thus provide public health benefits) by complementing public transit use and providing a substitute for private car-ownership. While some people use carsharing to replace public transit, more people increase their public transit and non-motorized trips (like walking and biking) after joining carsharing [1]. A case study of carsharing in Palermo showed a 25 percent reduction in particulate matter (PM10) and 38 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from the shift from private to shared cars [2]. Survey-based estimates have shown that a carshare vehicle tends to replace roughly 15 private vehicles [3], [4].
Carsharing may have also provided public health benefits related to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic public transit was seen as high-risk for exposure, and people with high incomes disproportionately switched from public transit to cars [5], [6], [7]. Carsharing may have provided an alternative for people without a private vehicle, as surveys show that car sharing was preferred over public transit and taxis due to reduced exposure risk [8].
Areas for further research include the impact of carsharing on access to healthcare and other basic needs and services, as well as accessibility of carsharing across groups.
References
Elliot Martin, E. Martin, Susan Shaheen, and S. Shaheen, “The Impact of Carsharing on Public Transit and Non-Motorized Travel: An Exploration of North American Carsharing Survey Data,” Energies, vol. 4, no. 11, pp. 2094–2114, Nov. 2011, doi: 10.3390/en4112094.
Marco Migliore, M. Migliore, Gabriele D’Orso, G. D’Orso, Domenico Caminiti, and D. Caminiti, “The environmental benefits of carsharing: the case study of Palermo.,” Transp. Res. Procedia, vol. 48, pp. 2127–2139, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.trpro.2020.08.271.
T. H. Stasko, A. B. Buck, and H. Oliver Gao, “Carsharing in a university setting: Impacts on vehicle ownership, parking demand, and mobility in Ithaca, NY,” Transp. Policy, vol. 30, pp. 262–268, Nov. 2013, doi: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2013.09.018
Car-Sharing: Where and How It Succeeds. Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board, 2005. doi: 10.17226/13559.
A. Tirachini and O. Cats, “COVID-19 and Public Transportation: Current Assessment, Prospects, and Research Needs,” J. Public Transp., vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 1–21, Jan. 2020, doi: 10.5038/2375-0901.22.1.1.
R. Brough, M. Freedman, and D. C. Phillips, “Understanding Socioeconomic Disparities in Travel Behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” J. Reg. Sci., Dec. 2020, doi: 10.1111/jors.12527.
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M. Wilbur et al., “Impact of COVID-19 on Public Transit Accessibility and Ridership,” arXiv.org, Aug. 2020.
M. del Mar Alonso-Almeida and María del Mar Alonso‐Almeida, “To Use or Not Use Car Sharing Mobility in the Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic? Identifying Sharing Mobility Behaviour in Times of Crisis.,” Int. J. Environ. Res. Public. Health, vol. 19, no. 5, Mar. 2022, doi: 10.3390/ijerph19053127.
Note: Mobility COE research partners conducted this literature review in Spring of 2024 based on research available at the time. Unless otherwise noted, this content has not been updated to reflect newer research.