Thesis

toc

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Authors
Mark Simmons and Aaron Lewis

Working Title
//Designing the Experience and the System to be made for Peer-to-Peer Carsharing//

Possible foreword/acknowledgement /Statement of Collaboration
This thesis is submitted in fulfillment of the final requirements for the degree of Master's in Sustainable Product-Service System Innovation (MSPI). This marks the first degree awarded of its kind. This thesis was more than just fulfilling program for us. We saw this thesis as an opportunity to prove the intelligence behind the MSPI program - making large steps towards sustainability while working with current cultural norms, set within the paradigms through which many people operate and see the world today. We see product-service systems as a key means for reducing greenhouse gas emissions now and at the same time changing cultural norms e.g., concepts around ownership, as explored in this thesis.

We would like our advisor and the other staff, yet to be determined who helped us during this thesis project. We would also like to thank the following people, yet to be determined, who were energized, gave us insight and an abundance of their knowledge and time. We would also like to thank both the Master's in Strategic Leadership 2011 and 2012 classes; and of course our own MSPI class, for the countless conversations and memories that were filled with inspiration, energy, passion, vivaciousness, empathy, perspective, and openness. The last two years of both of our lives in Karlskrona, Sweden, including and leading up to this thesis time has been truly precious for the both of us. We thank you.

Executive Summary
This paper explores how to facilitate the expansion and up-take of P2P car sharing. We examine survey data from P2P car sharing platforms in Europe and North American and examine two cases in-depth. The purpose of said research was to identify the needs of users. We then surveyed non-users to strengthen our findings from the aforementioned survey, of what the barriers and drivers to participating in a P2P car share are. We also conducted several interviews with industry stakeholders and conducted several online discussions through Quora, LinkedIn and our own wiki site.

We then ran several design workshops with urban planners, city officials, automotive designers, and other stakeholders to extract their construct their ideas on how to make the entire system more integrated; resulting in a better experience for users, with win-win-win type benefits for other stakeholders. After compiling our results into a set of recommendations we presented those findings back to the stakeholders whom with we had worked with before to get their feedback. We revised recommendations are presented in this paper.

We hypothesize that our research will find that that the expansion and adoption of car sharing markets can be greatly aided by overcoming or taking advantage of the following factors: trust, access, availability, convenience (transaction time..), basic economics and social and cultural aspects (status, ownership, prestige). We also foresee that the barriers can be significantly overcome through design and policy changes; while the drivers can be further encouraged.

List of contents, figures and abbreviations

 * Figures**


 * 1) Screenshot of P2P website interface
 * 2) Historical timeline of P2P car sharing
 * 3) Carsharing vs. other modes of transportation (can borrow from somewhere).
 * 4) World map of P2P car sharing companies and membership
 * 5) Costs of car culture circle with emissions at centre, manufacture out a bit, parking space farther out, health system costs farthest out?
 * 6) Customer journey map of P2P car sharing service for owner
 * 7) Customer journey map of P2P car sharing service for borrower
 * 8) Stakeholder system map
 * 9) Comparison / differentiation of Zipcar type companies and P2P car sharing companies.
 * 10) Comparison of different types of door entry technologies and protocols and who uses what.
 * 11) Barriers / drivers (same coin, opposite sides)
 * 12) Integrated transportation system
 * 13) Potential for impact
 * 14) Timeline of implementing a P2P car share
 * 15) Future timeline of things municipalities and automotive companies and other stakeholders could do.
 * 16) Sites crowdsourced
 * 17) Screenshot of wiki

GHG - Greenhouse Gas P2P - Peer-to-peer PESTLE - Political Economic Social Technological Legal Environment (analysis tool) PPP - People Planet Profit PSS - Product-Service System Getaround - P2P car sharing company based out of San Francisco, USA. Getaround website. Flexidrive - P2P car sharing company based out of Stockholm, Sweden. Flexidrive website.
 * Glossary of Terms **

carsharing (one word). This needs to be updated throughout the document. internet (it's the way things are going). crowdsource (one word).
 * Standardizations **

Traditional carsharing or B2C carsharing or traditional B2C carsharing?
 * Conventions **

owner - owner of the car being rented and who receive the rent money

borrower/user - user of the vehicle being rented and who pays for the rental

rent or share or interchangeable?

carsharing platform vs. carsharing company: some platforms are not-for-profit so the terms are not fully interchangeable => car sharing platforms should be what we use for the majority of contexts.

Introduction
The car pervades modern society. There are currently 1 billion cars on the road. By 2031 (roughly 20 years from now) the number of cars is expected to have doubled to 2 billion cars (source). In the US, the average is that each American owns 0.808 cars ([|Gov 2011]). In the array of modes of transportation, modern society and governments have overwhelming voted in favour of the car. Stat on money invested in highways and parking areas vs. public transit. Stat on how many people rely on the car vs. other modes of transportation e.g., rail and bike. Many cities (and the surrounding areas which they determine) have now been (re)designed around the car and the infrastructure it requires. The personal vehicle allows for a great sense of freedom in being able to go seemingly wherever you want to, whenever you want to. The car’s symbolic connection with freedom made it the envy of teenagers and young adults for decades in the mid to later 20th century. It continues to play that same role for many. For many, their car is intricately tied to their personal identity. It is true that the car’s dominance in the psyche of many in Europe, North America and in China has diminished marginally in recent years (Shaheen China article, other article). It remains though firmly rooted in people’s model of how they would like to move around; especially now that the economic feasibility of actually owning a car is or has already become a reality for many people in these markets.

Governments, municipalities and business around the world have set GHG emissions targets that aim to reduce absolutely GHG emissions. Many critiques still see this as inadequate to avoid even the greatest dangers that climate change poses. Perhaps a stat or two on emissions targets for the EU and the US. This is over the same time in which the amount of cars on the road is expected to double. Personal vehicle transportation accounted for 9.5% of the United States’ total GHG emissions in 2006. Comparison chart and short discussion of emissions per kilometer with other modes of transportation. Many people see the coming of electric vehicles (EVs) as they key to reducing the large footprint of personal vehicles. EVs still have many of the peripheral costs with standard petroleum-fueled cars. EVs remain though a critical part of reducing GHG emissions awhile providing a transportation solution that provides for the demands of many people today. The strategy thus needs to be multi-pronged. Strategies that would reduce the outright number of cars on the road would be preferred so as to improve on all the other ways in which cars are costly such as lots of resources / passenger miles travelled; lots of valuable real estate paved over with little capital on top of it (instead of more people friendly spaces with more vegetation); the infrastructure required to support car transportation is expensive and has its own giant environmental footprint; lost time in traffic (see figure xx); the level of support given to cars (2010 US bailout) and their infrastructure (ongoing - US Transportation) and the diversion of those funds from other places is also costly.

A business model that has emerged in recent years; which avoid all of these costs outright yet largely retains the benefits of owning your own vehicle is carsharing. The earliest organized forms of carsharing began in the 1980s in the US. It existed it fits and starts until Zipcar and three non-profits also in the US broke major ground. These four organizations grew carsharing from just a few hundred people tops to over probably in excess of of 1 million users today. Zipcar recently marked a major milestone by turning a profit for the first time in 2011. The investments in its car fleet, to keep up with its expanding userbase for years hampered it from ever reporting total revenues having exceeded those and other operational costs.

What is Carsharing?
Carsharing, hereafter known as traditional carsharing or B2C carsharing, is a system whereby people rent cars on a temporary basis, usually by the hour. Carsharing is markedly different from car rental. While for both systems, the fleet of cars are owned by the, the carsharing system is more distributed and operates on a more customer trust basis. Car rentals offices are normally at only a few select places throughout the city. Carshares have appropriated parking areas throughout the city from which users can pick the car up from and drop it off to. Most carsharing users live within walking distance of the nearest Point of Departure and Drop-off (PODD). Carsharing organizations normally operate on membership basis where you pay a small monthly fee. PhillyCarShare costs $35 a year plus a one time $25 application fee in addition to the hourly rate of $7.50/hour or 12.5 cents per minute. Once you are a member then you are free to reserve a car anytime you like if it is available. This has the added benefit of being more accessible (for both the pickup and drop-off) in the evenings, nights and weekends. Many people use carsharing in place of owning or purchasing a vehicle. Carsharing turns the fixed costs of owning a car into variable costs that are priced closer to the functional result that you want and get. Carsharing has been described as “ownership by the hour” (Cohen 2008?). The chart below illustrates that it is economical to use carsharing in place of owning a car for those person that drive less than 15,000km per year or 41km a day, every day (Prettenthaler and Steininger 1998). Other authors found the point of intersection to be more close to 7,000 to 10,000 miles per year (Litman 2000; Reynolds and McLaughlin 2001; Calgary Alternative Transportation Cooperative n.d.).



This iteration of carsharing began about 15 years ago. In 2010, it could be found in over 600 cities worldwide, covering 20 countries in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia (Shaheen 2010 China). Nevertheless, carsharing remains small in comparison to the car rental industry; which is roughly 20 times larger (Bieszczat and Joseph Schwieterman 2011).

[Chart comparing carsharing with car rental] [Chart showing the top reasons that people use carsharing]

What is P2P Carsharing?
In 2010, the first successful enterprises of a new model for carsharing emerged in San Francsico. “P2P carsharing is largely indistinguishable from traditional carsharing when viewed from the vantage point of a prospective renter member” (Hampshire 2011). It is markedly different from the car ownership side though. Whereas in traditional carsharing, the cars are owned by the organization that operates the platform, P2P carsharing companies don’t, normally anyway, own any of the cars. The cars are owned by other members who rent out their car through the platform, hence the term P2P or Peer-to-Peer. For the platform, this means that it doesn’t have the costs of having to purchase and maintain the fleet of rented cars, cutting their costs by more than half (Hampshire Gaites 2011). It also means that those additional cars don’t have to be manufactured and adding to the road system. For the person who owns and rents their car, this means an opportunity to actually make money through the platform. Considering that privately help cars are idle over 90% of the time, this doesn’t necessitate a huge inconvenience for them. Both the car and the parking spots become more effective through higher rates of utilization.

P2P services usually offer a greater selection of cars to rent; which is a benefit to users and their lifestyle needs. This does come with the tradeoff that some of P2Ps environmental benefits are taken away by the increase in novelty cars that have poor fuel economies. P2P is somewhat less reliable than traditional carsharing as the car rented could not be kept at the professional standards of a traditional B2C company. In addition, there is the potential for the car owner to forget or disregard a reservation of their car; leaving the person who had booked the car temporarily stranded. This has resulted in an observation that people are using carsharing for more business related trips, reserving P2P for more leisurely outings, such as on the weekend for example (Shaheen 2012).

Another difference between B2C carsharing and P2P carsharing is P2P’s inherent advantage to scale wider and faster. Without the costs of the car fleet, the platform has far less costs; needing fewer investments. Once the platform is available, there is less of a need to market and create a supply of cars before there is a demand.

As well, P2P carsharing can spread to less densely populated areas. For traditional carsharing platforms, there needs to be on the order of 60 or so members before it can be justified to purchase and place a car in the area. If a P2P car doesn’t have that membership base then it’s not losing any more money for the owner than it was before.

P2P carsharing will not supersede traditional carsharing. They offer different functions. P2P will though take a sizable chunk of what is and what could have been a market for traditional carsharing operators.

History of Carsharing
Carsharing began as early the 1940s in Europe. Successful organized forms did not emerge until the mid-1980s and into the early to mid-1990s; when it emerged in Germany and Switzerland in Europe and in Canada and the US. Shaheen et al. have broken North America’s carsharing evolution into three phases (Shaheen et al. 2009). They start in 1994 with initial market entry and experimentation (1994 to mid-2002), growth and market diversification (mid-2002 to late 2007), and commercial mainstreaming (late 2007 to present).

In 2009, four organizations accounted for 99% of all membership: three non-profits (City CarShare in San Francisco Bay Area, I-GO in metropolitan Chicago, and PhillyCarShare in the Philadelphia area) and Zipcar. Zipcar; which was incorporated in, had its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2011 (NASDAQ: ZIP). Zipcar’s 2012 First Quarter Report reported membership to be over 673,000 with a fleet of 8,900. It is currently located in the US, Canada and the UK (Zipcar 2012). It is by far the largest carsharing organization and the only one that is international (citation needed).



The first P2P carsharing company was RentMyCar, which started in Germany in 2001 (RentMyCar 2001). The first P2P carsharing platform in the US was RelayRides, which started in June 2010. It is based out of San Francisco. Also based out of San Francisco is Getaround, which won the 2011 Tech Disrupt startup competition which resulted in a lot of media attention for the company and for the industry (Techcrunch 2011). Today there are over twenty P2P carsharing platforms through the US, Canada and Europe (see table graphic with companies listed). Total P2P membership is unknown as membership numbers are proprietary and not normally released.

Impacts - Environmental
There have been several studies on characterizing the environmental impact of (traditional) carsharing. There are no studies to date on specifically the environmental impact of P2P carsharing; however it stands to reason that the impact in terms of user usage patterns and consequently aggregate emissions should be very similar as the context and experience remains largely similar for users. P2P carsharing should in fact have a notably lower overall environmental impact as compared to traditional carsharing because it adds zero cars to the road; it only utilizes cars already in the road system.

The statistic often associated with carsharing is the number of vehicles that come off the road for each car shared. The studies that have explored this question have come up with numbers ranging between 4.6 and 22.8 cars coming off the road for each car shared (Martin and Shaheen 2011). Most estimates though are in the range of 8-13 (citation needed). The actual character of the impacts of carsharing however are much more nuanced.

In the most comprehensive study done to date, Martin and Shaheen, found that 71% of carshare members actually increased their emissions. These were users who were shifting from owning no car and driving no kilometres to “owning a car by the hour” as one journalist phrased it. The table below (table xx) shows the categorization of how much each user changed their vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT). The spike presents the majority of the 71% of users who increased their kilometres driven but as you can see with the spike, most users increased their VKT by less than 0.25 tons of GHG/yr. 62% of those surveyed had no car in the household when they signed up (Martin and Shaheen 2011).



Figure xx below shows the weighted impact of survey respondents. The area below the x-axis represents those who reduced their annual emissions. Despite the majority of users increasing their annual emissions, an overall effect of carsharing reducing user emissions is clear. Both of these graphs represent the “Full Impact”. Full Impact is defined as “what physically happened with carsharing, as well as “what would have happened otherwise” in the absence of carsharing”. E.g., a house that has joined carsharing in place of purchasing a new car; which would result in more kilometer’s being travelled than as members in a carshare. This more hypothetical impact was based on questions to users about the context in which they joined carsharing (Martin and Shaheen 2011).



Martin and Shaheen’s conclusion was that carsharing reduces users VKT by 27% (Martin and Shaheen 2011). Research by Cervero 2004, Millard-Ball in 2005, Price in 2006 and Cervero in 2007 found that carsharing reduces VKT by 3%, 37%, 43% and 33% respectively (Bieszczat and Schwieterman 2011).

There is one facet of P2P carsharing that differentiates it substantially from carsharing that could potentially prove it to be environmentally detrimental. Whereas the cars operated by traditional B2C carsharing occupy a narrow range of vehicle classes, primarily sedan class cars ("saloons" in the UK), most P2P carsharing companies (of which all known P2P platforms we know of are) seek out the full range of car and truck classes. Giving P2P carsharing more of a lifestyle, luxury, novelty type character (for those users that want that anyway) by offering Hummer's for those seeking novelty, SUVs and trucks for those seeking a weekend getaway, sports cars for those seeking a cruise on the open road. All of which have lower fuel economy ratings that family sedan cars driven largely in an urban area. This is juxtaposed with traditional carsharing platforms that are seeking to populate their fleet increasingly and eventually entirely with plug-in electric vehicles. Traditional carsharing fleets are today made of mostly new cars which consequently means they have relative to other cars on the road, good fuel economy; whereas P2P carsharing cars can be from any age. Although some P2P platforms do cap the limit at how old the shared car can be.

"Carsharing members report a higher degree of environmental awareness after a program" (Lane 2005).

Impacts for Cities and Municipalities
According to Cohen et al. state that, “In addition to reducing emissions, pollution, congestion, and pressure on parking, many advocates claim that carsharing increases green and open space, improves public health and safety, and boosts local and state economies” (Cohen 2008). In a report from 2005, the Transit Cooperative Research Program organized the benefits of carsharing into the following diagram (TCRP 2005).

Parking (and using urban space effectively/appropriately).
Haven’t read the articles on this yet. There’s 1 article + 1 book on the subject.

Environmental benefits, city’s footprint, smog, noise
A study by Econsult of PhillyCarShare found that carsharing reduced traffic congestion by about 0.04%. This corresponds to reducing delays in traffic by 47,000 hours; which was valuated to be worth $980,000 in savings. This was just for metropolitan Philadelphia area. The study estimated that for every carsharing user, traffic delays are reduced by 2 hours (Econsult 2010).

A study by the Rocky Mountain Institute published in 2011 priced the per hour cost of each additional car on New York City streets. The results can be seen the figure below (figure xx).



Cyclical local economy for P2P
Although there is no evidence gathered to prove this, it does seem reasonable the claim from advocates of carsharing that carsharing, especially P2P carsharing is good for the local economy. Although, something like 30% of the transaction fee goes to the insurance company, the rest is split between the car owner and the platform (citable). P2P platforms are so far very local and to date only Getaround has expanded outside of it’s primary urban area (The San Francisco Bay Area) to another city (Portland). 2.5 Impacts for Users

Car sharing also helps to democratize personal mobility - it grants access to those that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford a car. People can obtain access without having to bear the full costs of ownership. Low-income households and college students can also benefit from participating in car sharing (Shaheen 2006). Also lifestyle accessibility.

It promotes the sense of community and social interaction - by increasing interaction with people that live in close proximity to one another ? - source?

Former car owners change their daily travel behavior dramatically after joining...Previously carless customers tend to use carsharing as a substitute for car rental, taxis, and other car-centered modes, rather than as an alternative to transit, walking, or cycling.

Carsharing has been shown to reduce mode adjusted vehicle miles traveled by members by 67% (3). The average member of the City CarShare carsharing service in San Francisco, California, spends only about $540 per year on automotive transportation (4). This represents a tenfold cost savings when compared with owning a small sedan (5).

Leeds Building Certification requirement now in some cities

Impacts for Car Owner-Renter Users
The economic benefit to the car owner equals the sum of all pay- ments made by renters less any transaction fees paid to the P2P provider who coordinates the network, cost of additional deprecia- tion incurred, and opportunity cost of time invested by the owner when managing the rental process. This calculation ignores income taxes and assumes that the costs of insuring and fueling the vehicle are borne by the P2P service provider. Until better data are avail- able, it is assumed that the service provider coordinates the network in exchange for a 30% transaction fee.

The P2P Market - Current and Future
Market demand studies conducted in the United States and Europe have estimated cost savings alone would drive between 3% and 25% of the driving population to forego car ownership, or to replace their privately owned cars, and instead take up membership in a car- sharing service (6). Other research estimated that if a sufficient number of conveniently located vehicles were available, then 10% of the individuals over the age of 21 in metropolitan areas of North America would adopt carsharing (2).

Today, despite the enormous potential environmental benefits and despite considerable consumer demand, adoption rates for car- sharing are currently 12 to 30 times lower than projected by market research (6)

Survey data collected by Shaheen, Cohen and Darius suggest that, based on conditions in 2004, carsharing could eventually serve up to 12.5% of the U.S. population over the age of 21 (Ibid). Considering that the market share of carsharing organizations remains almost negligible (about .2% of the country‘s urbanized population are presently members) the risk that the business will face saturation anytime soon seems low (US Department of Agriculture 2010).

colleges = young people = lifelong users

Characterizing P2P Users
The average carsharing member takes 2.33 trips per month....each trip has an average length of 4 h. (Hampshire 2011)

For consumers who make transportation choices in this way, carsharing is particularly pervasive for trips of ―necessity and convenience‖ rather than for more discretionary purposes, such as for leisurely outings or recreation. According to Millard-Ball et al., many use carsharing to make multiple stops while on personal business, to transport groceries and other items purchased on shopping trips, or when a destination is difficult to reach via other modes of transportation (Millard-Ball et al. 2005, 3-12)).



Carshares Through the Eyes of the Legal System
Many cities apply a rental-car excise tax to carsharing. It is currently uncertain if P2P carsharing is subject to the same tax treatment. Additionally, the tax treatment of personal income derived from participating in carsharing is not well defined. The state of California has taken the lead in clar- ifying the insurance regime governing P2P carsharing (California AB 1871, Feb. 12, 2010). This statute formally defines a P2P carsharing service, and it prohibits insurance companies from classifying an automobile as a livery service, solely on the basis that the car is part of a P2P carsharing service.

Nationally, the average tax is 17.93% for one-hour carsharing reservations and 14.08% for 24-hour reservations. By comparison, sales taxes in cities with carsharing services average just 8.06%.... In seven of the 25 largest cities in the study‘s sample of 82 cities with carsharing services, taxes on one-hour reservations exceed 30%. => Many municipal governments appear to be unwilling to differentiate carsharing from traditional rental car companies, making it relatively common for rates of taxation to approach or exceed 20%.

Many cities apply a rental-car excise tax to carsharing. It is currently uncertain if P2P carsharing is subject to the same tax treatment. Additionally, the tax treatment of personal income derived from participating in carsharing is not well defined. (Hampshire 2011).

Urban Mobility: The Current Situation
Our current transportation system, in particular the automobile, has really improved personal mobility, helped us prosper and granted a high degree of freedom, however it has also come with huge and ever increasing side effects (Mitchell 2010). It causes a number of serious health, social and environmental problems; it consumes considerable quantities of finite resources, primarily fossil fuels, causes local air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, road congestion, noise, mortality and morbidity from accidents, and loss of open space to roads, parking lots and urban sprawl (Vergragt 2006).

True Costs and Externalities
Our current transportation system is quite complex, of which the personal automobile is just one component, it also includes, refueling stations, roads, parking, energy supply and waste removal networks, policies and regulations and all other associated enterprises (Mitchell 2010).
 * cost of congestion/traffic
 * Cost of infrastructure: parking, roads, lighting, …
 * Accidents: capital damage and loss of human health
 * Environmental impacts

Emmissions
There has been efforts by nations and agencies around the world to limit the impact of transportation, unfortunately their impact has been relatively insignificant (Vergragt 2006). Road transport is now one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and transport is the sector with the highest growth rate of GHGs (Köhler 2006). During the period 1990–2004, global emissions of CO2 increased by 27 %. Energy demand from the transport sector (an indicator of global transport emissions) increased by 37 % over the same period. The two largest total greenhouse gas emitters world-wide are USA and China. Also between 1990-2004, CO2 emissions in the USA increased by 19 % whilst the energy demand from the transport sector increased by 28 %. China saw the fastest increase in emissions with CO2 emissions and energy demand growing by 108 % and 168 % respectively (EEA, 2008).

Population Growth and Vehicle Ownership
With those CO2 emissions figures in mind, let us consider the effects of population growth, increasing mobility and increasing vehicle ownership will have, in particular in emerging markets like China and India. To put the scale of our increasing mobility into perspective consider that in the year 1800, people in the US travelled on average 50m a day; they now travel 50 km a day (Buchanan 2002). Today the population of our planet combines for a total of 23 billion km travelled; by 2050 that figure is projected to increase by a factor of four to 106 billion (Schafer and Victor 2000). Worldwide car travel in particular is expected to triple between 1990 and 2050 (Hawken et al., 2002).

One billion cars were manufactured during the last century and we currently have over 600 million cars on the planet (Mitchell 2010). In the US there are 785 vehicles per 1000 people (Cherry 2005). China on the other hand, has a vehicle ownership density of only 28 per 1000 (Cherry 2005). This figure is expected to increase very quickly as China fits well within the international experience of vehicle growth as correlated with income measures, such as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (Chinese Academy of Engineering and National Research Council, 2003). Although the developed world is hardly in the position to criticize or attempt to limit developing countries from attaining similar affluence and mobility that we’ve enjoyed for decades, should they follow the in our foot steps, the ecological effects would be disastrous (Vergragt and Brown 2006).

Urbanization
In addition to rise in our planet’s population, we should also take note of where people are living. 2007 was the first year when more people lived in urban areas than in rural areas. Cities represent 2% of the world’s geographic area but account 75% of the world’s energy consumption (reference?). The United Nations predict that more than 60% of people will live in cites by 2030. The confluence of increasing population, the increasing trend to live in urban areas and increasing vehicle ownership density necessitates a much more efficient transportation system. Modal Comparison
 * How world wide or country specific travel is broken down by mode - what percentage of each mode is used
 * How the modes interact
 * A comparison of those modes by: emmissions, cost...

Urban Mobility: Backcasting from a Sustainable Future
A backcasting approach is necessary when forecasts or directional studies result in an undesirable future (Höjer and Mattsson 2000). If we forecast from our current situation, based on existing transportation trends, we find that .... the world will explode - source? This type of exercise provides a warning or sets a time limit to our current practices, but does not provide a solution or suggests alternative paths. Backcasting on the other hand is focused on desired futures and encourages the discovery of new paths along which development could take place. The basic concept of backcasting is simple; you envision where you want to go and determine how to get there. Höjer and Mattsson (2000) break down the backcasting process in the following four steps; 1. Establish targets and goals. 2. Compare the targets and goals to the current situation, prevailing trends and expected developments. 3. Generate idealized futures that meet the targets and goals. 4. Evaluate the idealized futures and determine what actions need to be taken to achieve them.
 * What future or who’s vision are we backcasting from?
 * How do we get there? What does it involve? What role does shared vehicle use, in particular P2P car sharing, play?

Sharing economy / collaborative consumption / Product Service Systems
[Sharing is] the most universal form of human economic behavior, distinct from and more fundamental than reciprocity. . . . Sharing has probably been the most basic form of economic distribution in hominid societies for several hundred thousand years. (Price 1975)

The sharing economy (aka collaborative consumption) is by no means a new concept, but recently the economic crisis, environmental concerns, technological developments and the maturation of the social web have caused these ancient market behaviours to explode to an unprecedented scale (Botsman 2010). It’s based on an economic model where peers swap, barter, trade, rent or share resources that are already in circulation in our society. In addition to the obvious potential for economic and environmental benefits, collaborative consumption also encourages the creation of community on a global and local scale (Gansky 2010). Popular examples of collaborative consumption include: space sharing (Aribnb and CouchSurfing), co-working (the Hub), household item rental (Zilok), car sharing (Zipcar and Getaround), ride sharng (GoLoco), peer funding and banking (Kickstarter and Zopa), redistribution markets (ebay and Freecycle) and the list goes on.

In addition to the above mentioned market successes, awareness and popularity of the sharing economy can be also be partly attributed to champions of this social trend like Lisa Gansky (author of The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing) and Rachel Botsman (co-author of What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption). Despite it’s recent rise the term ‘collaborative consumption’ was originally coined and described by Felson and Spaeth in 1978.

It’s perhaps important to note that according to Belk, despite the constant use of the word ‘sharing’ many of the concepts within collaborative consumption are actually traditional commodity exchange. He goes on to explain that: ‘commodity exchange is about the reproduction of rights to objects, not the reproduction of relationships between people. Therefore, ideally the exchange is simultaneous so that there is no lingering debt to tie the parties to one another. Another prototypical characteristic of commodity exchange is calculability. Weights, measures, and specifications together with fixed or explicitly bargained or auctioned prices help make clear exactly what we give and what we get in such exchanges. Contracts and contract law stipulate the conditions of sale and what is required of whom. Trade laws encourage honest treatment and give us means to settle disputed outcomes. Such specificity and legal requirements are generally absent in the contexts of sharing and gift giving.’ (Belk 2009)

It is within the realm commodity exchange that most current incantations of P2P and B2C car sharing exist. Online P2P platforms, such as Getaround, Flexidrive and Whipcar, and B2C car sharing clubs, like Zipcar and Statt Auto, act as the middle men that handle and stipulate the contracts, checks and balances, legal and insurance issues and money exchange. Freeing individuals from these time consuming, complicated or often socially awkward tasks is what has helped to make car sharing attractive and to achieve it’s current level of success.

The rise of collaborative consumption can also be closely linked to a related trend that Jeremy Rifkin identified in 2000 that he called ‘the age of access’. The fundamental principle being that companies and individuals are increasingly seeking access to resources over ownership (Rifkin 2000). Product service systems (PSS) are based on a similar foundation - people don’t necessarily want ownership, but would rather pay for the benefit or the functional result (Tukker 2006). The classic examples being ‘people want toast, not toasters’ or ‘people want a hole in the wall, not drills’. It is within PSS that B2C car sharing and P2P car sharing can be classified - people get the benefits of access to a fleet vehicles without the costs or responsibilities of vehicle ownership.

This trend towards new forms of ownership and deprivatisation could signify that payment for ‘access’ to travel/mobility services will supersede the owning of vehicles outright (Urry 2008). This could open the door for future urban mobility systems to much more versatile and efficient.

Research Question / The Kernel
We have selected car sharing as our thesis topic. The three main reasons for this are,

1) Car sharing, especially, P2P car sharing is just emerging now. It is fresh and hot. It is fresh in that it is interesting and exciting for us. Being fresh, it also demonstrates to prospective employers our awareness and knowledge around current trends and where things are going, and the value therein. It also of course gives us a very good "in" into the industry itself should we so desire. The industry as well has strong ties to San Francisco; a city that we like. => Jobs.

2) Car sharing has a large potential for impact in reducing GHG emissions, dematerializing, improving lifestyle choices (not owning cars results in walking and or biking more often), creating community (by connecting people and improving perceptions of social trust) and localizing economies (the rental fee receiving renters are local). => Potential impact on PPP - People Planet Profit.

3) Collaborative consumption, Use Oriented PSS, P2P networks, enabling web and mobile technologies: car sharing is at the confluence of all of these "technologies". They are exciting for us. They are what we are interested in and even passionate about. => Passion.

One thing that we have yet to resolve is our scope. We would perhaps like to focus on P2P car sharing specifically but because the P2P car sharing industry is so new, there is very little data available that is exclusive to that industry. The advantages of focusing on P2P would be that, 1) We key on a very niche topic; which would make our thesis, one of few and one of the first focusing on this specific market; which would result in our paper more likely to be referenced or at least read, given the continuing trend of moving from distributed car rental companies like Zipcar to P2P car sharing platform companies (e.g., WhipCar, Buzzcar, RentMyCar, RelayRides, Getaround), and so getting in early could be good ( Chase, 2011 ). 2) It gives us a very well defined and niche market to focus on; which would allow us to be more specific in our research and writing, which from an academic perspective is desirable. There are two disadvantages however. 1) By focusing on P2P car sharing we might limit our potential readership on focusing on such a niche market i.e., exclude people who are interested in just car sharing in general. 2) Primarily though, it will certainly be problematic to use and reference a large amount of data that is for either all types or an undefined variety of car sharing types. The differences of which, as compared to P2P car sharing, we are uncertain of.

We are also unsure of our target audience. Our target audience from a profession perspective will be car sharing companies, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, city planners, municipality officials, other academics, interested citizens, NGOs and research organizations. We are unsure though of whether we want to focus on those professionals only located in North America and Europe or whether we want to make it global in scope. We are unsure of what the difference and potential ramifications are. Perhaps there would be no difference.

Figuring out what specific question we wanted to ask about our subject industry was guided by a shared desire to: provide the P2P car-sharing industry with what it needs to expand faster and deeper into the mainstream market. One way that we conceptually broke this down was recommendations (or otherwise contributing) to current car sharing platforms and other stakeholders. Another was for our work to be targeted at prospective car sharing platforms and other stakeholders. Of course, in either case, there would most likely be a lot of overlap.

Our personal needs for our kernel - the research question:
 * Use the crowd
 * Connect with people in the biz
 * Practical
 * Design centered
 * Use backcasting
 * Portfolio showcase piece
 * Systems thinking (thinking at different levels).


 * The Research Question**

//How to facilitate the expansion of P2P car sharing into new markets and// //increase// //its adoption in existing markets// //by designing a better user experience?//
 * Subquestions**
 * 1) What are the main barriers to P2P car sharing adoption and what is their relative importance?
 * 2) What designs for new markets can easily be applied to expanding existing markets?
 * 3) What are the most feasible and wanted changes to the way cars are currently designed and built, in order to accommodate and promote the sharing of those cars?
 * 4) What are the major barriers to the P2P car sharing market expanding into mainstream market (market saturation of 25% of the personal vehicle industry)? What are key means to removing those barriers?
 * 5) What is the ideal P2P car sharing service experience? How do we design this?
 * 6) How to leverage and integrate the pre-existing trust level of social media networks into current P2P car sharing platforms network?
 * 7) What are the different user lifestyle profiles of people who participate in car sharing?

Timeline
116 Days or 16 weeks (until Final Report Due) x 40hrs/week

Week 1 (Week 4 of Calendar Year): January 24th - Thesis Presentation to MSLS Week 2 Week 3 Week 4: February 17th - Draft Report Week 5: February 21st - First Presentation Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13: April 20th - Draft Final Report, Guidebook Week 14: April 25th - Second Presentation, Guidebook Week 15: Guidebook Week 16 (Week 19 of Calendar Year): May 18th - Final Report Week 17: May 27th - Final Presentation

First Phase

Full Project Plan

Methods
One of our main goals for our thesis is to involve as many people as possible. We feel that open and crowd based models for creation can be very powerful if directed and harnessed correctly. We also think that seeking outside contributions, in particular from industry professionals, makes sense considering the relative infancy of our topic - P2P car sharing. The existing academic research on car sharing is primarily focused on more traditional car clubs (B2C car sharing), like Zipcar. The term can also include ad-hoc and cooperative car clubs, in addition to encompassing ridesharing and carpooling in some cases. Although much of this research is relevant to our exploration, it is not obvious if all of it is transferable. For this reason we feel to get the most relevant and current information our review of existing research should be complemented with input from the various stakeholders in the system.


 * List of Methods:**
 * Crowdsourcing
 * Surveys
 * PESTLE Analysis
 * Expert Interviews
 * Design Workshops and Brainstorm Sessions

Our primary method within this category will be our wiki (http://carsharing.wikispaces.com). This is where we will post our thesis in real time. It will be live and fully editable. Allowing anyone to comment or change our work as we go (of course we will have the ability to review and undo any changes). The goal of it will be to avoid getting tunnel vision. Obviously for the wiki to be of use we need to not only drive traffic to it, but also insure that traffic includes people who are familiar with the topic. To aide in doing this we plan to make use of more mainstream platforms like Quora, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media. Quora and LinkedIn Groups will allow us to get answers to specific questions and identify people who are knowledgeable about the topic and willing to contribute. We will also use other social media platforms in a similar fashion. Twitter in particular will be good for identifying leaders in the industry and potentially gain access to them by following them on Twitter and commenting on their tweets.
 * Crowdsourcing**

Question: Does anyone know of any LinkedIn groups that would be good to post car sharing related questions in?

We plan to administer several online surveys to gain a better understanding of user needs and to identify the barriers to wider adoption. They will include the following target groups: 1. Existing P2P car sharing users, 2. Existing traditional car club users, 3. General public. We hope to be able to survey car sharing users by gaining access to the user base of various car sharing companies. We haven't made any solid agreements with any of the companies, but we have made contact and are pretty confident that they are willing to work with us.
 * Surveys**

We will use a PESTLE analysis to help identify all the stakeholders and to gain a better understanding of the market and the factors affecting it. This will be on going and evolutionary process with the stakeholder map and PESTLE analysis being frequently revisited along the way.
 * PESTLE Analysis**

The primary goals of the expert interviews will be to identify the current state of the art, identify barriers in car sharing adoption and also identify gaps and unfulfilled needs. It is our belief that the current personal transportation paradigm is quite antiquated, we want to re-imagine and get other people to re-imagine what the system could be if it was designed from the ground up to facilitate sharing and communal use.
 * Expert Interviews**

Our expert interviews will span a variety of industries: law makers and regulators, insurance companies, urban and spatial planners, car sharing clubs, online P2P car sharing platforms, car companies, and other related infrastructure and technology companies.

The goal of these sessions will be to get people to help us brainstorm and design concepts that will help overcome the various barriers to car sharing expansion and adoption. The primary target groups for these activities will be designers - including engineers, industrial designers, transportation designers and urban planners. Ideally we could collaborate with the internal design team of a major car manufacturer, in particular a forward thinking one (ie: that is developing EV cars). We will also seek to collaborate with students - in particular the spatial planners at BTH and transportation design programs around the world.
 * Design Workshops and Brainstorm Sessions**

We have contacted several people and companies and have gotten very good responses so far. But we're still trying to find more industry people to partner with. In particular, we are very keen to find some car manufacturers and designers to work with. Please feel free to suggest companies we should speak to. Or if you represent one of those companies and are willing to collaborate with us, definitely let us know!
 * Collaborating Organizations**

So far we have contact with the following companies:
 * Flexidrive (P2P car sharing platform - Sweden)
 * Getaround (P2P car sharing platform - US, primarily San Francisco)
 * Xatori / Plugshare (EV infrastructure - San Francisco area)

Expected Results

 * Identify the main barriers to P2P market expansion and widespread adoption
 * Collect quantifiable data to weigh the importance of the identified barriers - surveys
 * Collect opinions of industry experts to identify barriers and weigh their importance
 * Brainstorm ideas to overcome the identified barriers
 * Approach the problems/barriers at various levels (stakeholders - ie: insurance companies, urban planners, car makers...) within the system and propose solutions at each level
 * Develop / conceptualize some of the novel / most promising ideas (maybe)
 * Attempt to determine where changes would have the most impact (vehicle design vs infrastructure design vs urban design vs policies, laws and subsidies)

In terms of deliverables, we would also like to create something more accessible than a 60 page academic thesis. This could take the form of a guide or online tool. The target audience for this tool would largely depend on our findings - for example if we determine that the best way to increase the number of car sharing users is to re-design automobiles, then our guide would be primarily directed towards car makers. On the other hand, if we determine that city planning, regulation and policies are the best way to go, then governments would be our primary audience. That being said, we expect that the best way to move forward will involve the participation of all stakeholders, and therefore our guide will be directed at everyone involved.

Conclusions
We hypothesize that the expansion and adoption of car sharing markets can be greatly aided by overcoming the current barriers. It is our belief that these barriers could potentially include the following: trust, access, availability, convenience (transaction time..), basic economics and social and cultural aspects (status, ownership, prestige). We also foresee that these barriers can be partly our completely overcome through design and policy changes.

Further work/research/recommendations
We recommendation that we foresee giving is with concern to the potential synergy and benefit of collaboration between the different stakeholders: car designers, city planners, municipal officials, the platform itself, representatives of other forms of transportation such as bike and train modes of transportation.

References
Our current reference list can be found by checking our Mendeley group: http://www.mendeley.com/groups/1799071/carsharing-thesis/papers/

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Botsman, R. & Rogers, B. (2010). //What's Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption//. New York: Harper Collins.

Ceschin, F., Vezzoli, C., & Zhang, J. (2010). //Sustainability in Design : Now ! LeNS Conference ,// Bangalore, India.

Chapman, J. (2005). //Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences & Empathy//. London: Earthscan.

Cohen, A. P., Shaheen, S., & McKenzie, R. (2008). Carsharing: A Guide for Local Planners. Retrieved from []

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Shaheen, S., Cohen, A. P., & Chung, M. (2008a). North American Carsharing: A Ten-Year Retrospective. Retrieved from [|http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8jg510td#page-1]

Shaheen, S. A., & Cohen, A. P. (2008b). Worldwide Carsharing Growth: An International Comparison. Retrieved from []

Shaheen, S., Cohen, A. P., & Roberts, J. D. (2005c). Carsharing in North America : Market Growth, Current Developments , and Future Potential. Retrieved from []

Shaheen, S. (2004d). U.S. Carsharing & Station Car Policy Considerations: Monitoring Growth, Trends & Overall Impacts. Retrieved from []

Stickdorn, M. & Schneider, J. (2010). //This is Service Design Thinking//. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.

Tukker, A., & Tischner, U. (2006). //New Business for Old Europe: Product-service Development, Competitiveness and Sustainability//. Sheffield: Green Leaf.