Problem & objectives
The convergence of demographic changes, urbanization, and global economic forces, such as the sharing economy, has created fertile ground for the growth of carsharing globally. Nowadays an increasing section of the urban population sees car ownership as a burden to be outsourced. At the same time, the consequences of predominant use of individual, privately-owned vehicles in car-centric cities are well known: increased congestion, noise, shortage in parking, inefficient land use, and pollution. Many initiatives have been taken by cities in the search for more sustainable transportation systems that are less dependent on private vehicles. Carsharing addresses this convergence and opportunity by offering convenient and affordable access to a vehicle anytime. For car manufacturers carsharing represents a new way to market produced cars and steer towards becoming a mobility service provider. Pure free-floating carsharing schemes applied in many cities seem not be the only and most effective solution in high dense cities with a high occupancy rate of on-street parking public space like Barcelona. Therefore, the project will develop and pilot-test a station-based (stations being in off-street parking), one-way carsharing scheme in Barcelona (A2B). The project goal is to demonstrate that a sustainable carsharing service without on-street parking occupation is possible and could be complementary to other possible carsharing models. An assessment of the benefits and impact of the service will be analysed in-depth, as an input for potential future city regulations. Moreover, the project will make Barcelona pilot conclusions, insights and KPIs openly available to other European cities considering the adoption of carsharing services, thus fostering more sustainable and efficient mobility in Europe.
NFF will contribute to the project by providing efficient development pathways towards a climate-neutral vehicle fleet 2050. For this purpose types of vehicles are identified to serve the different kind of use cases to be addressed. NFF will provide requirements and guidelines for integration of electronic vehicels (EV) in urban car-sharing fleets and will develop a guideline for the integrated planning and control of fleet, energy and charging infrastructure to achieve an ecological and economical operation.
