North American College/University Market Carsharing Impacts: Results from Zipcar’s College Travel Study 2015. Effects on Vehicle Use and Ownership, Travel Behavior, Quality of Life, and Environmental Impacts
Stocker, A., Lazarus, J., Becker, S., Shaheen, S. (2016). North American College/University Market Carsharing Impacts: Results from Zipcar's College Travel Study 2015. Effects on Vehicle Use and Ownership, Travel Behavior, Quality of Life, and Environmental Impacts. TSRC Working Paper, UC Berkeley, CA.
About the study
Researchers at the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC), UC Berkeley in partnership with Zipcar conducted a survey to better understand the impact that carsharing has on college member travel behavior, vehicle holdings and driving, quality of life, and transportation expense savings. The survey design was conducted as a joint effort among TSRC, Zipcar, and university representatives. The college/university carsharing market is a unique environment for both carsharing users and operators. Due to the particular living arrangements and travel needs of college members, carsharing usage on college/university campuses and the impacts of carsharing are different than the neighborhood carsharing market. One major distinction between college carsharing and carsharing in the general population is the difference between household and individual vehicle holdings and transportation decisions. Since many college students do not live in a typical household setting, impacts regarding vehicles and driving must be assessed on an individual basis (in contrast to the household level) for a majority of these users. The methodology employed in this survey accounts for this important distinction, whereas most of the previous carsharing studies use the household as the common unit of measurement.