This paper analyses the effect of two new developments: electrification and ‘free floating’ car sharing and their impact on public space. Contrary to station based shared cars, free floating cars do not have dedicated parking or charging stations. They therefore park at public parking spots and utilize public charging stations. A proper network of public charging stations is therefore required in order to keep the free floating fleet up and running. As more municipalities are considering the introduction of an electric free floating car sharing system, the outline of such a public charging network becomes a critical piece of information. The objective of this paper is to create insights that can optimize charging infrastructure for free floating shared cars, by presenting three analyses. First, a business area analysis shows an insight into which business areas are of interest to such a system. Secondly, the parking and charging behaviour of the vehicles is further examined. The third option looks deeper into the locations and their success factors. Finally, the results of the analysis of the city of Amsterdam are used to model the city of The Hague and the impact that a free floating electric car sharing system might have on the city and which areas are the white spots that need to be filled in.
DOCUMENT
In the Interreg Smart Shared Green Mobility Hubs project, electric shared mobility is offered through eHUBs in the city. eHUBs are physical places inneighbourhoods where shared mobility is offered, with the intention of changing citizens’ travel behaviour by creating attractive alternatives to private car use.In this research, we aimed to gain insight into psychological factors that influence car owners’ intentions to try out shared electric vehicles from an eHUB in order to ascertain:1. The psychological factors that determine whether car owners are willing to try out shared electric modalities in the eHUBs and whether these factors are identical for cities with different mobility contexts.2. How these insights into psychological determinants can be applied to entice car owners to try out shared electric modalities in the eHUBs.Research was conducted in two cities: Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and Leuven (Belgium). An onlinesurvey was distributed to car owners in both cities inSeptember 2020 and, additionally, interviews wereheld with 12 car owners in each city.In general, car owners from Amsterdam and Leuven seem positive about the prospect of having eHUBs in their cities. However, they show less interest inusing the eHUBs themselves, as they are satisfied with their private car, which suits their mobility needs. Car owners mentioned the following reasons for notbeing interested in trying out the eHUBs: they simply do not see a need to do so, the costs involved with usage, the need to plan ahead, the expected hasslewith registration and ‘figuring out how it works’, having other travel needs, safety concerns, having to travel a distance to get to the vehicle, and a preferencefor ownership. Car owners who indicated that they felt neutral, or that they were likely to try out an eHUB, mentioned the following reasons for doing so:curiosity, attractive pricing, convenience, not owning a vehicle like those offered in an eHUB, environmental concerns, availability nearby, and necessity when theirown vehicle is unavailable.In both cities, the most important predictor determining car owners’ intention to try out an eHUB is the perceived usefulness of trying out an eHUB.In Amsterdam, experience with shared mobility and familiarity with the concept were the second and third factors determining car owners’ interest in tryingout shared mobility. In Leuven, pro-environmental attitude was the second factor determining car owners’ openness to trying out the eHUBs, and agewas the third factor, with older car owners being less likely to try one out.Having established that perceived usefulness was the most important determinant for car owners to try out shared electric vehicles from an eHUB, weconducted additional research, which showed that, in both cities, three factors contribute to perceived usefulness, in order of relevance: (1) injunctive norms(e.g., perceiving that society views trying out eHUBs as correct behaviour); (2) trust in shared electric mobility as a solution to problems in the city (e.g., expecting private car owners’ uptake of eHUBs to contributeto cleaner air, reduce traffic jams in city, and combat climate change); and (3) trust in the quality and safety of the vehicles, including the protection of users’privacy. In Amsterdam specifically, two additional factors contributed to perceived usefulness of eHUBs: drivers’ confidence in their capacity to try out anunfamiliar vehicle from the eHUB and experience of travelling in various modes of transport.Drawing on the relevant literature, the results of our research, and our behavioural expertise, we make the following recommendations to increase car users’ uptake of shared e-mobility:1. Address car owners’ attentional bias, which filters out messages on alternative transport modes.2. Emphasise benefits of (trying out) shared mobility from different perspectives so that multiple goals can be addressed.3. Change the environment and the infrastructure, as infrastructure determines choice of transport.4. For Leuven specifically: target younger car owners and car owners with high pro-environmental attitudes.5. For Amsterdam specifically: provide information on eHUBs and opportunities for trying out eHUBs.
MULTIFILE
As society has to adapt to changing energy sources and consumption, it is driving away from fossil energy. One particular area of interest is electrical driving and the increasing demand for (public) charging facilities. For municipalities, it is essential to adapt to this changing demand and provide more public charging facilities.In order to accommodate on roll-out strategies in metropolitan areas a data driven simulation model, SEVA1, has been developed The SEVA base model used in this paper is an Agent-Based model that incorporate past sessions to predict future charging behaviour. Most EV users are habitual users and tend to use a small subset of the available charge facilities, by that obtaining a pattern is within the range possibilities. Yet, for non-habitual users, for example, car sharing users, obtaining a pattern is much harder as the cars use a significantly higher amount of charge points.The focus of this research is to explore different model implementations to assess the potential of predicting free-floating cars from the non-habitual user population. Most important result is that we now can simulate effects of deployement of car sharing users in the system, and with that the effect on convenience for habitual users. Results show that the interaction between habitual and non habitual EV users affect the unsuccessful connection attempts based increased based on the size of the car-sharing fleet up to approximately 10 percent. From these results implications for policy makers could be drawn.
MULTIFILE
Slim laden van elektrische auto’s is een typisch voorbeeld van een technischeenergie-innovatie waarin de gebruiker in de toekomst een belangrijke rol zal spelen. Kennis van de gebruikersvariabelen is desondanks nog een ‘missing link’ in bestaande initiatieven. Dit project beoogt door onderzoek naar de gebruikersinteractie bij slim laden, de voorwaarden te scheppen voor verdereontwikkeling van deze technische innovatie. Hiermee wordt ook daadwerkelijk bijgedragen aan het ontwikkelen van innovatieve diensten voor een duurzame waardeketen op dit gebied.
