Unlocking Shared Mobility
ITS Australia's Unlocking Shared Mobility research project allows us to understand better how we can collaboratively work to increase the options for customers to access car-share services to improve outcomes for our transport networks and communities.
The current, round trip, car-share services in Australia are proven to reduce the use of motor vehicles, and can also increase the use of public transport, cycling, and walking.
Free-floating car sharing services (FFCS) have been introduced in a range of jurisdictions internationally as an additional option to round trip car-sharing. FFCS removes the need for the shared vehicle to have a specific parking spot, most commonly allocated by a Local Government Authority (LGA), negotiated with the car-share provider. FFCS allows users to pick up and return cars anywhere within specified areas of a city.
While a seemingly simple proposal, whereby a customer can collect a vehicle through their member app and pay-per-kilometre to a destination of their choice, and park it where another member of the car-share program can share it, this can be a surprisingly complicated process to enable, and can cause public backlash, as seen with the implementation of free-floating bike share.
“Unlocking Shared Mobility – Investigating free-flow parking for car-sharing in Australia”, is made possible with funding from partners through the iMOVE CRC (Collaborative Research Cooperative), on behalf of the Australian federal government. The Project partners are are: ITS Australia, RMIT, IAG, Cubic Transportation Systems (Australia) Pty, and Royal Automobile Association of SA Inc (RAA). This Project is working in close collaboration with key stakeholders in academia, government, industry, and the community to better understand the current parking challenges and work towards a solution that enables the wider availability and usability of car-share services.
This research is funded by iMOVE CRC and supported by the Cooperative Research Centres program, an Australian Government initiative. ITS Australia led this project with research partners RMIT, and participants Cubic, IAG and RAA to better understand how we can collaboratively work to increase the options for customers to access car-share services to improve outcomes for our communities.
Project Partners
Participants
