Browsing by Author "Lahti, Kristiina"

Motoring is the most popular way of travelling among Finns, but the manner of it needs to be transformed into a more efficient and sustainable model: cars in urban areas are stationary about 90 percent of the time and in city areas were population is constantly growing there is pressure on organizing motoring and parking. Traditional parking lots are no longer sustainable due to lack of space; hence parking is directed to underground car parks or parking houses, whose building costs increase housing prices. There is already a noticeable change in the trend of car usage both in Finland and globally: explanatory factor is thought to be the different lifestyle of millennials through transition to sharing economy and changed mobility needs. Carsharing is thought to be a possible solution to meet the problems of urbanization, to achieve sustainable ways of transportation and to fulfill the changing needs of mobility. Compared to traditional motoring, benefits of carsharing are seen in reduced emissions and required parking space. The practice of carsharing has already been brought to zoning plans to reach these goals. However, simply changing the physical environment by reducing the number of parking spaces is not enough: the change in car use is done by the end-users, the motorists, themselves. This Master's thesis focuses on examining the potential of end-users for using shared vehicles to reduce parking space and car ownership in urban areas. The research has been carried out in cooperation with Kojamo Group which offers carsharing as a supplementary housing service to some of their residents. The empirical part of the study was carried out by sending an electronic survey to all households who are offered shared cars in their immediate vicinity. The survey sought to find out daily travel behavior, experiences of car sharing and car ownership. 48 replies were received of which 60 per cent were from Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The rest of the replies represented the cities of Jyväskylä, Tampere, Lahti and Oulu, out of which 80 per cent of respondents were living in urban areas. Carsharing did not prove to be an important part of the respondents' travel behavior: 21 per cent of the respondents reported to have used, or to be using, a shared car, but the average usage activity was only once per month. A majority of people who use shared cars represent car-free households. Half of respondents who have not used shared cars are considering using them in the future and more than half of respondents who own cars are considering abandoning them and switching to shared cars, if the service is always available when needed. Based on the results, the greatest potential for using shared cars is found among car owning households where the car is not in daily use due to comprehensive public transport. The total amount of cars or car usage has not decreased in any of the surveyed households by the effect of carsharing. In the already car-free households, the shared cars naturally increase the total car usage, but the mileage driven is however very low on a monthly level. As a summary of the results of the theoretical and empirical part of this study, it can be stated that station-based carsharing can be seen as a potential way of reducing the need for parking space in urban areas, as long as the service is reliable, and it serves different needs of transportation.