Planning for free-floating parking for car-sharing in Australia

The iMOVE project Free-flow parking for car-sharing has been completed, and its final report can be downloaded below. Work for this project was conducted in partnership with ITS Australia, RMIT University, Insurance Australia (IAG), Cubic Transportation Systems, and the Royal Automobile Association of SA Inc.

The project was undertaken to better understand the current parking, infrastructure and policy challenges that affect shared mobility models with a focus on evaluating free-floating car sharing (FFCS) operations before the COVID-19 crisis, and to promote wider availability and better usability of car share services by looking at the associated potential, opportunities, and challenges.

From this work was produced an evidence base for guidance to government and industry and help identify key issues for stakeholders and public policy decision makers.

What Australian cities/local planners want to know about FFCS

At the initial phase of this research, three workshops provided a forum for questions relevant to issues regarding FFCS schemes in the Australian context.

Amongst the questions, workshop participants wanted to understand who the potential users of FFCS were, the impact of FFCS, and the relationship between this and other existing transport modes.

Participants also wanted to know where FFCS had been operating and how any challenges and other considerations, from concept to implementation, could affect implementation in Australia.

The influence of new mobilities

Cars, roads, and particularly parking infrastructure are key components of Australia’s transport system. Despite large cities like Sydney and Melbourne having extensive (and improving) public transport networks, reducing dependence on private cars is a stubborn and significant challenge.

For the past few years, shared mobility schemes have been used in Australian cities. These schemes, in various stages of development across the country, encompass car sharing, ride hailing, and micromobility vehicles.

Mobility as a Service (MaaS), the provision of a single, integrated on-demand transport scheme is an important transport initiative that brings new opportunities for exploration and implementation. NSW and QLD emerge as the most advanced in terms of exploration here, with NSW leading in standards and data sharing.

The role of car parking and parking policy in cities and transport

Car parking is an enormous urban land burden consisting of public road space and private off-street spaces, with street space and parking a fiercely debated battleground. New mobility modes like car sharing are creating extra competition for parking as they too now make claim for position on existing spaces.

Research shows “… private cars are stationary around 95% of the time.”, yet traditionally, 20th-Century street space management has prioritised privately owned vehicles in their considerations. Unlike private cars however, new mobility modes are either supported or restricted by car parking policies. With availability and price important factors in parking influences, plentiful free parking space is doing little to dissuade private car ownership and private use.

Car sharing

Car sharing is a system where members have access to a vehicle when they want to use one. The principle of car sharing is simple:

Individuals gain the benefits of a private automobile,

without the responsibilities and costs or burdens.

Amongst research findings we see that typically users of car sharing services are likely to be young, urban, environmentally conscious males, usually with a higher education and income who use public transport and cycle and walk more.

There is no one size fits all for car sharing schemes with technological evolution driving development in the types of schemes in play. Amongst them are:

• Station based (SBCS): perhaps the most widely accepted scheme is a round- trip scheme where vehicles are picked up and returned to the point of origin.
• Free-floating/station-based (FFSB): where vehicles can be taken from and left at any station of the system.
• Free floating (FFCS): a flexible type of use where vehicles are taken from and left at any available parking spot in the city, constrained only by a GPS delimited area, defined by providers
• Free-floating/area based (FFAB): vehicles belong to and can be taken from a delimited area of the system but have to be returned to the same area to end the trip/booking.

Within these models, there also exists alternative models of ownership and management, for example Peer to Peer (P2P) schemes which allow members to rent vehicles from other members. Other providers offer a hybrid or combined service which means pending conditions of use, vehicles can be used either in a station-based or free-form manner.

Free-floating car sharing

Free-floating car sharing is a more recent and relatively flexible type of car sharing that allows members to use vehicles for short periods, picking them up and returning them within a GPS delimited area of a city and/or its surrounding region.

FFCS schemes tend to operate in mid to high density areas with mid to high income where there is a relatively high mode share in public transport. Users are generally relatively young people with multi-modal transport behaviours and a higher level of both education and income.

FFCS is primarily a convenience service, with most users utilising vehicles for short urban trips. Users can make ad-hoc, spontaneous decisions about whether to use the service, rather than having to plan vehicle use in advance. For example, people may start their journey walking but decide to hire a car as it has started raining, since they now have a car, they also decide to do their groceries. The ability for users to make stops within one trip provides great flexibility but can make modelling a challenge.

Allocation of space

Car sharing relies on parking spaces and allocation of space is particularly critical for FFCS schemes which bring new operational considerations. Fair access to parking is a critical requirement for FFCS with international experiences suggesting there may be a requirement for explicit access to parking benefits.

To promote uptake and retention, it is essential users have a guaranteed car when they want it. This reliability factor has an appreciable impact on usage and further, whether people would consider giving up car ownership.

Access to the vehicle when you want it is one thing but being able to park the vehicle safely and legally is the second piece of this puzzle. Vehicle parking can be viewed as both an incentive and a barrier for use – “a deal maker and a deal breaker’.

International research highlights how restrictive parking regulations, inconsistent policies, and prolonged battles over parking rights have been responsible for the discontinuation of several FFCS schemes.

Mobility hubs may provide a clever solution in the battle for space. Already in place in Germany (with different versions in other parts of the world) this model sees a central hub of multimodalities located close to public transport with car and bike sharing with parking facilities and charging stations for electric vehicles.

Car sharing and FFCS in Australia

Car sharing uptake in Australia depends on several variables including the “… urban form, cultural aspects and characteristics of the population, which explains why it has achieved different stages of development around Australia.”

Car sharing in Australia has developed in an ad-hoc manner and operates differently in different cities. Station-based car sharing has shown a positive impact in reducing car ownership and increasing the use of alternate transport with Sydney held as an example of where good policy has increased use.
The work here has found there are currently no FFCS schemes operating in Australia (as far as the authors know). Two companies had approached Australian cities to launch FFCS services, with both withdrawing from the Australian market before implementation.

Brisbane City Council has recently released a new type of permit for short-term hire operations in the city. This new permit would enable FFCS use with the permits “… valid for use in any regulated parking permit scheme area.”. The next step would be evaluating the benefits of this system once an FFCS scheme is eventually implemented.

Recommendations and conclusions

The report authors recommend beginning with a good understanding of how FFCS schemes work and advise local insight into local resident travel behaviour is paramount.

Space allocation should also be one of the first considerations, with collaborative cooperation from councils and policy makers in this area essential. Creating or adapting creative curb space management systems is critical, with a preliminary understanding that the better managed public parking is, the better mitigation of risk for FFCS.

Implementation of local pilots and trials is essential to understand distinct local challenges and evaluate the benefits of use. Developing data sharing systems and methods of evaluating and measuring impact will aid in determining if strategic goals are being met.

There is no one size fits all convention for FFCS and more research locally and internationally is needed to gain full understanding of the challenges and benefits to implementation of these car sharing schemes.

Expected project impacts

ITS Australia is proud to have developed this important iMOVE project in partnership with our researcher Luisiana Paganelli at RMIT University. Parking is an ongoing challenge for our cities and communities, and undertaking a deep investigation into the potential for alternate vehicle ownership and car-sharing models is a real pragmatic approach to build a more sustainable and efficient transport network in Australia. We’ve heard from many local government stakeholders on how important this research has been for their future planning.

Stacey Ryan – Policy Manager ITS Australia

Download the final report

Download your copy of the final report, Unlocking shared mobility: Investigating free-flow parking for car-sharing in Australia, by clicking the button below.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT