Does car sharing reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Assessing the modal shift and lifetime shift rebound effects from a life cycle perspective

TLDR

Car‑sharing platforms give users access to shared vehicles, altering mobility behavior and ownership patterns with potential environmental benefits. This study investigates the total mobility‑related greenhouse gas emissions reduction achieved by business‑to‑consumer car‑sharing participation. A comprehensive model that incorporates annual travel distances of major urban transport modes, their life‑cycle emissions factors, non‑operational emissions, and rebound effects from modal and lifetime shifts is applied to an average car‑sharing member in the Netherlands, San Francisco, and Calgary. The analysis finds only a modest 3–18 % reduction in annual mobility‑related life‑cycle greenhouse gas emissions from car‑sharing, far lower than previous estimates of up to 67 %, underscoring the importance of the newly considered rebound effects.

Abstract

Car-sharing platforms provide access to a shared rather than a private fleet of automobiles distributed in the region. Participation in such services induces changes in mobility behaviour as well as vehicle ownership patterns that could have positive environmental impacts. This study contributes to the understanding of the total mobility-related greenhouse gas emissions reduction related to business-to-consumer car-sharing participation. A comprehensive model which takes into account distances travelled annually by the major urban transport modes as well as their life-cycle emissions factors is proposed, and the before-and-after analysis is conducted for an average car-sharing member in three geographical cases (Netherlands, San Francisco, Calgary). In addition to non-operational emissions for all the transport modes involved, this approach considers the rebound effects associated with the modal shift effect (substituting driving distances with alternative modes) and the lifetime shift effect for the shared automobiles, phenomena which have been barely analysed in the previous studies. As a result, in contrast to the previous impact assessments in the field, a significantly more modest reduction of the annual total mobility-related life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions caused by car-sharing participation has been estimated, 3-18% for three geographical case studies investigated (versus up to 67% estimated previously). This suggests the significance of the newly considered effects and provides with the practical implications for improved assessments in the future.