The role of governance in supporting car sharing as an integrated transport mode

Car sharing is a service that allows members to access a car without the need to own one. While car sharing has the potential to contribute to urban sustainability, this can only be achieved if it is integrated with urban planning and transport systems and used as a complement to the mobility options available. Although there is increasing interest in supporting and integrating car sharing worldwide, initiatives to implement car sharing in an integrated way are not yet broadly practiced. Moreover, despite their relevance, issues of car sharing governance and integration remain widely unexplored in transport studies and policy debates. In addition, they are particularly lacking in investigations focused on sustainability aspects of car sharing. It is also not clear to planners and decision-makers how to integrate car sharing effectively. The aim of this research was to investigate the role of governance in supporting car sharing as an integrated transport mode by exploring how it is governed and how it can be integrated. This research used a multiple-case study approach and mixed-methods to investigate car sharing governance. This began with a review of literature on transport planning, new mobilities, governance, policy theories and car sharing. Based on this review, a concept of car sharing integration was proposed, which was then translated into the conceptual Car Sharing Governance Integration Framework (CSGI Framework). This framework connected policy theories to key elements of car sharing governance and integration by identifying eight significant categories: actors, awareness, government support, policy development, space allocation, transport integration, implementation and evaluation. A global study of car sharing governance was then undertaken, with insights provided by initial desktop reviews, 85 semi-structured interviews with relevant actors from government, market and advocate institutions, and field observation in selected cities. The outputs of this study were a global overview of car sharing governance and the analysis of arrangements implemented in five cities considered promising cases: Bremen (Germany), Ghent (Belgium), Milan (Italy), Vancouver (Canada) and Singapore. Next, the research undertook an in-depth intra-case regional analysis of eleven metropolitan municipalities in Melbourne, Australia, focused on their complex car sharing policy environment. This involved desktop reviews, 27 semi-structured interviews, document analyses and field observation. The CSGI Framework was used as the theoretical and analytical lens to guide and structure the empirical investigation and its analyses. Results illustrated and confirmed the CSGI Framework and revealed the complexity and general characteristics of car sharing governance worldwide. The main issues include different levels of awareness of and experience with car sharing among core actors, mostly a lack of both; path dependence of planning for cars, mainly in policymaking; inconsistencies between perceptions and measures implemented in and within cities from the same region, which tend to hinder rather than support car sharing; and planning and regulatory fragmentation. Additionally, most governance arrangements were based on resolving car parking, usually in separated policies, guided and challenged by car dominance and path dependence. These characteristics were especially apparent in the Melbourne context, where fragmentation and inconsistency were illustrated by different, and mostly incompatible, approaches and policies between the municipalities. In general, the more successful cases internationally tended to exhibit common characteristics of more comprehensive and strategic car sharing planning, with increased consistency among governance arrangements and higher levels of mode integration. A key finding of the thesis is that, in concept, car sharing is perceived as beneficial and sustainable, but, in practice, it is addressed and managed as a motor vehicle, or as a parking problem. This thesis offers propositions about how car sharing is governed. First, the rationality and logic applied to many governance arrangements is based on economic, spatial and public-private status issues, while car sharing is often considered a loss of space and parking revenue, a financial cost and compensation, and private profit, but less frequently a sustainability instrument. Second, car sharing sits within and appeared to be governed using two different governance structures – sustainable mobility in concept, and automobility in practice – and there is no governance structure focused on car sharing as a transport mode. Finally, this research identified and classified four types of policy intentions that tend to guide and shape the development of car sharing governance arrangements, which vary from nil to high integration and intend to allow, enable, incorporate, or integrate car sharing. This research concludes that governance has fundamental roles in supporting car sharing as an integrated transport mode. Governance is what can legitimately integrate car sharing, with consistent arrangements and a conducive policy environment that address it as a special transport mode, acting as a key enabler of car sharing development and shaping its implementation. Therefore, cities could benefit from a more appropriate approach to governing car sharing, by accepting its complexity and reducing the tension between strategic and operational objectives, or between sustainable mobility and automobility systems, that generates fragmented policy making and inhibits mode integration. Car sharing should be governed as a mode, by a tailored governance structure, in a holistic and consistent way. Based on the confirmed conceptual framework, this thesis proposes a Car Sharing Governance Integration Model (CSGI Model) for this structure, from which 11 principles of effective car sharing governance were derived, aimed at establishing policy environments that enable rather than hinder the development of this mode. In its conclusions, this thesis demonstrates the significance of car sharing governance to urban sustainability and contributes to transport governance knowledge in five important ways: 1) applying policy theories to a transport study, to investigate real-world scenarios of how car sharing is governed; 2) providing detailed and extensive knowledge about global and regional car sharing governance, which is believed to be the largest study on the topic performed to date; 3) employing theories of governance and policy to advance and conceptualise car sharing governance, with the ability to guide further analyses of car sharing and other shared mobility modes; 4) offering an academic contribution to a domain largely dominated by grey literature; and 5) connecting research with practice, as the outcomes of this systematic investigation should inform planning and policy.