Carsharing (close.: Car = car, sharing = divide; on German about: "Autoparts", "community car" or "neighbourhood car"; other ways of writing: Car sharing, Car sharing, CarSharing or also partial car) is the organized joint use one or several cars.

From the car hire Carsharing differs thereby,

• that long-term liable to pay the costs contracting party shank or membership in an Carsharing organization is necessary usually,
• that the vehicle use also for a shorter time is possible (e.g. contrary to the car hire also by the hour),
• that the vehicles are stationed often distributed over the city residence near on firmly rented parking lots and must be there also usually returned,
• that a simple and temporally free entrance to the vehicles is possible (reservation over Internet or telephone in place of the personal collection of the vehicle documents and - keys) and
• that a good integration is present in the combined mobility.

Situation in the German-language countries

Germany

In Germany Carsharing is offered of over 100 Carsharing organizations (CSO) in more than 250 cities and municipalities. The predominant part of the vehicles is offered by enterprises. However associations represent the largest number of Carsharing organizations, which offer i.d.R. only individual vehicles.

The oldest Car sharing organizations of Germany are place car Berlin and quarter car Munich. The Federal association CarSharing registered association (bcs) (see Related links) takes the interests up of the CSO in itself, too represented and makes a transverse use of vehicles in other cities and favorable purchase conditions possible for Carsharing organizations.

Carsharing divides today thus into Germany into two main groupings:

• Finance companies (in form of a GmbH or an AG), which want to reach Carsharing by Professionalisierung larger parts of the population. They are almost exclusively from associations. Critical voices see therein a break with the ecological goals.
• Associations and groups of neighbourhoods (contract communities (GbR)), which surround only costs, thus profit-oriented and usually in a local or quarter-referred surrounding field do not operate

The three largest Carsharing groups of Germany with at least 10,000 customers are (after the size):

• Greenwheels/bought up and was promoted the place car CarSharing AG (Berlin, Hamburg, potsdam, Rostock and Schwerin) and Shell drive Germany GmbH (Braunschweig, Chemnitz, Dresden, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Jena, Nuremberg, Regensburg & Ruhr district) thereby to the market leader. Both enterprises are subsidiary companies of the Netherlands CollectCar B.V. (Greenwheels also there exclusively steps on) under the mark, with distance largest Carsharing offerer in the Netherlands. Renaming of place car CarSharing AG to the Greenwheels AG and/or Shell drive Germany GmbH to the Greenwheels GmbH took place in March 2006. Medium-term a fusion of both subsidiary companies is expected.
• City-mobilely in Celle, Frankfurt/Main, open brook, Hanover and environment, Hildesheim, yard home, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, different smaller places in the Rhine Neckar region, Stuttgart and environment, Karlsruhe and environment as well as Pforzheim.
• cambio in Aachen, Bielefeld, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Cologne, Oldenburg, Saarbruecken, as well as several cities in Belgium (Antwerp, Brugge, Brussels, Gent, Leuven, Namur and Ottignies Louvain la Neuve).

The German railway daughter-corporation railways Rent GmbH offers Carsharing under the product name to railways Carsharing country widely. Some larger CSO co-operate with the railways Rent. The Franchise system was given up from the railways to 1 January 2006.

Contrary to contracting party shank or membership with a locally operating CSO Carsharing exists the possibility of using country widely the vehicles of different CSO during the contractual relation with railways. In this case not the fees of the respective CSO are computed, but uniform railways a Carsharing tariff. Since in a Carsharing city usually also a parking lot in station proximity exists, railways make so the problem-free transferring of course to car for Carsharing possible, without having to fall back to a car hire in the classical sense. This model stands thereby in some points of a car hire more near as Carsharing, in particular under the aspect of the country wide availability.

The railways Rent operate in resound one of the three large reservation centers beside cambio (Bremen) and WHD (Heidelberg).

Switzerland

Pioneers in the area of the Carsharings were two Swiss companies auto+divide cooperative and ShareCom (today together Mobility CarSharing), to which both 1987 as cooperative with ecological background originated in. At first these enterprises were carried by activists, which were their spare time from idealism into these companies and into maintenance and maintenance of the vehicles. Accordingly "knitted "also the perception of these pioneers was in the public. After the fusion 1997 of these two enterprises the whole topic was strongly professionalisiert, whereby the original self-help thought is no longer as prominent as to the period of promoterism.

Other offerers of Carsharing in Switzerland could be established only in regions, in which these pioneers were not yet represented. The offerer copilot car could only at short notice from 1993 to 1995 in the area Geneva hold itself and had because of the underestimated costs of the structure of fleet and the development of on board computer with auto+divided fuse.

European-wide

Under the name european car the Car sharing offerer from Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway and Switzerland united sharing (ecs). Thus can be also traveled in the context of combined traffic landspreading.

Carsharing world-wide

Switzerland is until today in the Carsharing world-wide leading, even if Germany could overhaul up-to-date Switzerland in absolute numbers. The first Carsharing organizations started 1987 in Switzerland, 1988 followed from the first German organizations. In the 90's there were many establishments in Europe and North America.

World-wide the customer and vehicle numbers give an overview of the size and the distribution of the Carsharing:

Potential

In a study of Mobility CarSharing from the year 1998 in Switzerland a market potential of 1,7 millions potential customers one determined, 25% the inhabitant corresponds to what. This market potential can be again extended by the installation course of firm customers. Already 2004 were to be foreseen that the market is approximately satisfied in Switzerland.

Meanwhile also companies recognized that Carsharing can be worthwhile itself also financially, as it before-makes Mobility successful: The own master fleet can be crucially reduced, eliminated completely or be better charged to capacity by the flexible reservation of vehicles by the letting at private people. Thus for example Migros rented some light load cars during the day fixed, while the same vehicles can be rented in the edge times and on weekend by private people. That is a classical Win Win situation, because the Carsharing enterprise can adjust the relative demand overhang in the spare time of the majority of the members (in the evening, on weekend and at holidays) by the acquisition of firm customers tendentious by intensified demand in the work times of the majority of the members (Monday until Friday during the day); the vehicles are charged to capacity evenly and altogether more strongly thereby, which lowers the total costs per vehicle kilometer.

Literature

• Peter Muheim, CarSharing - the key to the combined mobility, Berne 1998. EDMZ part number 805.501.d via http://www.admin.ch/edmz
• Markus Petersen, economic analysis of the Car sharing, German university publishing house 1995, ISBN 3-8244-6111-0 (or to refer over place car CarSharing AG)
• Herbert tree et al., Car sharing as approach of urban traffic problems, Cologne 1995
• Willi Loose et al., stocktaking and possibilities of the advancement of Car sharing, ISBN 3-86509-144-X, ISSN 0943-9331, Freiburg in mash gau the 2004

See also

• Topic list traffic
• Traffic
• Mobility

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