Behavior Patterns of Long-term Car-sharing Users in China

• Published in: Transportation research procedia (Online) Vol. 25; pp. 4662 - 4678
• Main Authors: Hui, Ying, Wang, Wei, Ding, Mengtao, Liu, Yian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 2017
• Subjects: behavior patterns; car-sharing; group; long-term users; behavior patterns; car-sharing; long-term users; group
• ISSN: 2352-1465; 2352-1465
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2017.05.303

This paper presents the behavior patterns of long-term users in detail on the basis of empirical data of car sharing in Hangzhou, China. Users, whose utility time are more than three months and frequency of usage are beyond once per month, have been selected as the subject investigated (long-term users) in this study. Unlike other studies on car sharing in China, which only conducted theoretical analyses and investigation of willingness for car sharing, this study was based on real operation data of Hangzhou, which was the first massive pilot city for car sharing project in China. The major objective of this study was to analyze the differences between groups classified from the long-term users group according to the different frequency of usage, and identify and summarize the typical usage patterns by using indices such as new members, monthly orders, single-use time, single-use distance, time of taking-out and placing-in a car, and so on. The findings indicate that the behaviour patterns of each group are different: that of the highest frequency users group are similar to the characteristics of commuting travel and that of lowest frequency users group are more similar to the car-sharing users abroad. The key contribution of this paper is presenting the different behaviour patterns of the Chinese users in groups differing in frequency, and act as a foundation for questionnaire surveys and policy analysis in the future.