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Business-to-business carsharing: evidence from Britain of factors associated with employer-based carsharing membership and its impacts

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Abstract

Carsharing organizations (known as car clubs in Britain) are today evolving in new ways. One noteworthy development is the growth of the business-to-business (B2B) market, which is motivated in part by operators’ desire to smooth the temporal profile of overall carsharing demand and thereby increase aggregate fleet-utilization rates. In contrast to the widely-studied business-to-consumer (B2C) market, however, comparatively little is known about the B2B segment. This study fills this gap by drawing on a national survey of both Britain’s B2B carsharing members (n = 682) and employers’ corporate travel administrators that oversee an organization’s B2B carsharing membership (n = 127). Analytical methods included both descriptive statistics and multivariate regression techniques. We find that two-thirds (68 %) of B2B members use carsharing for their usual business travel, and that half (51 %) of them previously used their own car for such travel. Approximately one in seven (15 %) respondents indicated that their carsharing membership through their employer has changed their travel habits by allowing them to commute to work less often by private car, as they do not require their own personal car for work-related travel during their workday. It appears that car use for (non-commuting) business purposes may increase, however. This paper concludes with a discussion of open questions that are suggested to motivate the future research agenda.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Britain’s carsharing operators and B2B members for administering and taking part in this survey, respectively, as well as three anonymous reviewers for thoughtful feedback. An earlier version of this material was presented at the 2014 Transportation Research Board conference (Clark et al. 2014). The usual statement applies: any errors are the authors’ sole responsibility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Steer Davies Gleave, 28-32 Upper Ground, London, SE1 9PD, UK

    Matthew Clark

  2. Carplus Trust, Ebor Court, Westgate, Leeds, LS1 4ND, UK

    Kate Gifford

  3. University of Aberdeen, St. Mary’s Building, Aberdeen, AB24 3FX, UK

    Jillian Anable

  4. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, SW7 2AZ, UK

    Scott Le Vine

  5. Department of Geography, SUNY New Paltz, Hawk Drive, New Paltz, NY, 12561, USA

    Scott Le Vine

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  1. Matthew Clark
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  2. Kate Gifford
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  3. Jillian Anable
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  4. Scott Le Vine
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Correspondence to Matthew Clark.

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Clark, M., Gifford, K., Anable, J. et al. Business-to-business carsharing: evidence from Britain of factors associated with employer-based carsharing membership and its impacts. Transportation 42, 471–495 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-015-9609-y

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