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Carsharing has emerged as a transformative solution in transportation, offering flexibility and cost-effectiveness as an alternative to private car ownership. As cities evolve and urban populations rise, carshare provides a convenient way for city dwellers to access vehicles when they need one, without clogging up city streets when they don’t.

What is Carshare?

Carsharing, at its core, involves a single vehicle shared and used by multiple people. It allows individuals and businesses to access cars and vans by the hour or day without having to own the those vehicles, eliminating the costs and hassles associated with ownership. Rooted in community and sustainability, carshare replaces privately owned cars, taking underutilised cars off the streets. Research shows that for every GoGet car added, ten privately owned vehicles are removed from busy city streets.

But how do they work? There a few different models for carshare, both in the way that carshare services own and look after their cars, and in the way the services work.

Vehicle Ownership

There are two main models here: Professionally owned and managed carshare and peer-to-peer carshare.

Professionally Owned and Managed Carshare

Carshare providers like GoGet and Flexicar fall into this category. Here the provider owns and maintains all their vehicles, giving them control of the make and models they offer, consistency of service, control of where they place their cars and the availability of the network. Their cars also tend to be newer, most under 5 years old, which is well below the average age of an Australian vehicle which is over 10.

Peer-to-peer Carshare

Services like Turo and Uber Carshare are examples of this type of carsharing. Peer-to-Peer carshare is where individuals rent their privately-owned vehicles to others via an online platform. In this model vehicles are owned by members of the community and ownership and vehicle maintenance responsibilities are carried out by the vehicle owners and not the carshare service.  This means the age, condition and consistency of the vehicles may vary more widely.

While there is lots of research that confirms that professionally owned carshare has a significant positive impact on the environment (more links to research here and here), there is less data available of whether peer-to-peer carshare has a similar impact.

Carshare operating models

Outside of differences in who owns and maintains the carshare vehicles, there are also differences in how carshare services run, particularly around where the car is left at the end of the trip.

Round-Trip Carsharing:

This is how GoGet works and is the type of carshare you will see in Australia, regardless of whether the vehicles are professionally owned, or it is a peer-to-peer service. In this model, users will pick up and return vehicles to the same location – a round trip. It is also sometimes described as return-to-base or two-way carsharing.

This is most similar to car ownership – after all you can’t leave your private car at your destination either!

The experience in returning the car can differ between operators. In some cases carshare operators are provided with designated carshare only parking spaces by local councils. This makes for a great experience as members will have a designated spot available for them on their return and don’t have to battle to find parking. These types of spaces are subject to council regulations which makes it more challenging for peer-to-peer carshare providers to access them as they cannot be reserved for an individual’s car owner’s exclusive use and they need to meet special conditions. This means that most dedicated on-street carshare only bays in Australia are designated to operators who own and manage their fleet and not to peer-to-peer operators.

One-Way Carsharing:

This model allows users to collect a vehicle from one location and drop it off at another. It is also often called free-floating carshare. This type of carshare is not offered at scale in Australia, but is common overseas.

Free-floating carsharing is a flexible model that allows users to locate, pick up, and drop off vehicles freely within a service area. Users find available cars via the app, unlock them, and start their journey and then leave it anywhere within a predefined service area. It’s appeal lies in its onvenience and it can be great for spontaneous use.

On the downside, this type of carshare is more expensive to operate and, therefore, to use. The cost per minute or hour tends to be higher than for round-trip alternatives. Operators also need to run a larger fleet to service their trips as they cannot guarantee that they will have cars where they need them at busy times, which is not as good for the environment. Because they cannot know where a car will end up, users cannot book a vehicle in advance and users may also struggle to get a car in busy areas or at busy times. With round-trip carshare, operators will know where a car will be and when it is available, meaning members can reserve it in advance and make sure tthey have a car when they need one.

There is also the issue of “bunching” in some areas at certain times of the day or days of the week. For example in CBDs at the end of rush hour, or at the beach on a hot summer day. This means that this type of carshare can actually negatively impact traffic congestion in some cases, unlike round-trip carshare. Often operators will either need to move cars around themselves, or incentivise their members to do it for them by offering discounts or other benefits.

Want to give carsharing a try?

Make the smarter choice in car ownership and join hundreds of thousands of other Aussies and give carsharing a try today. Gain access to thousands of cars near you by the hour or day. Memberships range from free to $30 per month.