Opportunities for and Impacts of Carsharing: A Survey of the Austin, Texas Market

Carsharing involves the communal ownership and use of a fleet of vehicles, typically on an hourly basis. Austin CarShare was launched in the fall of 2006, making Austin the first city in Texas with carsharing services. While many studies have discussed the positive impacts of carsharing, few have examined widespread public opinion of carsharing. This study undertook the challenge of investigating traveler preferences during ACS's service launch, in order to anticipate latent demand for such services. The survey provides detailed information on public opinion of different aspects of the ACS program, as well as the expected demand on the service and possible changes in travel patterns. Supplementing the survey results with spatial data, membership models of two pricing plans reveal that households with higher vehicle ownership and income-to-adults ratios are less likely to join the program, while level of education exhibits a convex relationship with the probability of joining the Freedom Plan, ceteris paribus. Although potential carsharing users share similar characteristics, the two plans serve slightly different customer sets and have the potential to supplement one another. This study also reveals that while demographic (non-spatial) weighting ensures the corrected sample mirrors the population, it is inadequate when proximity and/or other spatial effects are at play. Spatial weighting helps to address such factors, though more fundamental optimism bias is hard to correct for in stated preference surveys.