free floating car sharing opportunity for a definitive ... · car sharing has evolved from a...

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7 September 2017 The Secretary, Economy and Infrastructure Committee Parliament House, Spring Street EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002 Dear Secretary, Please accept this cover letter and attached report as a submission to the Committee’s Inquiry into Electric Vehicles. A mushrooming of Melbourne’s population over the next 20 years combined with the phenomena of significant population detachment from economic hubs driven by growing rates of car ownership and burgeoning investment by government in private car driver-driven infrastructure is a looming urban mobility crisis. We risk sleepwalking into a situation where our once “world’s most livable city” has insufficient public transport, overloaded infrastructures, a default logarithmic expansion of motorised means of transport, a vast rise in air and noise pollution and CO

2 emissions, a concomitant parking capacity problem

and increasing disparity in the social equity standards between communities of very near proximity. What should the Victorian Government do? The attached report assesses the opportunity for Free Floating Car Sharing in Zero Emission urban transport. This report concludes that Free Floating Car Sharing is an innovative technology with a smart operating model that improves cities. It offers cities a no-cost, scaleable transport alternative to supplement existing transport systems and reduce inner urban vehicle congestion.

Moreover, Free Floating Car Sharing offers Melbourne’s best opportunity for a definitive, practical and evolutionary pathway into asustainable Zero Emission urban mobility future through the accelerated uptake of Electric Vehicles.

Quickar Pty Ltd (ABN 99 611 879 513) Melbourne, 3000 Victoria, Australia

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In light of these conclusions, the Victorian Government should:

• Enable Free Floating Car Sharing. It should create an exemption or permit classification under the Road Safety Regulations that would provide temporal freedom in Permissive Parking Zones for Free Floating Car Sharing Schemes.

• Encourage all inner-urban Councils to foster a regulatory scheme that will recognise that Free Floating Car Sharing is good for consumers and good for cities, that user incentives are necessary to encourage regular utilisation, and a medium term trial period would be necessary to encourage multiple International operators to establish themselves.

• Ensure that Councils recognise that onerous administrative burdens and fees will make Free Floating Car Sharing Schemes unviable.

• Support the transition to Battery Electric Vehicle Fleets with measured support for infrastructure establishment and operating expenditure.

• Fund associated budgetary impacts with the least distorting tax available or by cutting low-value expenditures.

These simple reforms would enable the effective deployment of Free Floating Car Sharing in Victoria and enable the accelerated uptake of sustainable private and public Electric Vehicle transport ultilisation.

Quickar is pleased to be able to make a submission and assist the Committee in its deliberations. We would be happy to meet with the Committee and provide further information that may assist it. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you or the Committee require further information. Yours Sincerely,

Scott Browning Chief Executive Officer Email: Phone: cc. Via Post

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Zero Ownership & Zero Emissions

Sustainable Urban Mobility reform for Victoria

Quickar submission to the Standing Committee on Economy and Infrastructure: Inquiry into Electric Vehicles

September 2017

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1. Introduction 2. Types of Car Sharing and Model Evolution 3. Impacts of Free Floating EV Car Sharing 4. Regulating Free Floating EV Car Sharing 5. Infrastructure for Free Floating EVs 6. Incentives for Free Floating EVs 7. Model Regulations 8. Transition Process 9. Benefits of Free Floating Car Sharing 10. Free Floating Dynamics 11. Analysis - Transport Integration Act (2010) 12. Conclusion 13. References 14. Attachments

About Quickar At Quickar, we believe getting from A to B should be easy, convenient and sustainable. Automotive technology is evolving rapidly and cultural attitudes towards cars are changing. People are seeking better ways to create more liveable communities and they are turning to empowering technology for ways to access and achieve low cost and sustainable private mobility solutions. Digital Retailing, Car Sharing, Ride Sharing, Electric Powertrain and Driverless Control combined with the digital and cyber-physical technology revolution will significantly disrupt the automotive and transportation industries over the next decade; in very much the same way digital disruption has already impacted photo imaging, music, books, video entertainment, media, communications and discretionary retailing. These disrupters will herald the greatest change in our urban landscape since the motor car replaced the horse a century ago. Quickar provides thought leadership and development of practical strategic solutions to affected government bodies and corporations seeking to remain relevant through the disruption journey to ultimately leverage these evolving technologies and consumer attitudes.

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1. Introduction

City Limits All around the globe people are flocking to cities. In 2007, UN population figures showed that more than a half of the world’s population for the first time lived in urban areas. That proportion is set to rise to 60% by 2030 and 67% by 2050.

This mushrooming in urban population will be accompanied by a massive growth in the number of individual journeys taken on a daily basis. Today, 64% of all travel kilometers are made in urban environments but the number of urban kilometers travelled is expected to treble by 2050.1 In Australia the urban population is predicted to grow from 21 million people in 2016, to 37 million people in 2050. Nearly half, 16 Million will live in Melbourne and Sydney. The majority of Australia’s population will live in Melbourne. Such an explosion in the growth of urban mobility systems will present new challenges on a number of different fronts.

Planet: At a time when sustainability of resources and the environment is increasingly at the forefront of one’s mind, a logarithmic increase in the use of motorised transport raises the specter of a vast rise in air and noise pollution and CO

2 emissions. Indeed, it is predicted that by

2050 urban mobility systems will use 17.3% of the planet’s bio capacities, five times more than they did in 1990.2

People: An inevitable consequence of an unreformed and under-invested urban mobility system is gridlock. By 2050, the average time an urban dweller will spend in traffic jams will be 106 hours per year, twice the current rate, with all that entails for the quality of life of the average citizen.3

Profit: Unless far-sighted decisions relating to service expansion and innovation are made now, the cities of the future stand to sleepwalk into a situation where they have insufficient public transport, overloaded infrastructures, a default expansion of motorised means of transport and a concomitant parking capacity problem. Given that urban infrastructure is a key factor in luring businesses to cities, this would be highly damaging commercially.

In Australia, major capital cities, and in particular Sydney & Melbourne, are struggling under the pain of outer-urban expansion fuelled by anxiety over housing affordability. This expansion of urban sprawl into unused land residential releases, permitted by roads infrastructure brought on by high and

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growing levels of private vehicle ownership, ameliorates community and political concerns around housing affordability. However, the phenomenon dramatically increases the relative cost of transportation for households and disadvantages communities with detachment from employment growth opportunities, health services, education and more integrated community environments. Ironically, housing build and insurance costs also increase due to greater footprint requirements necessitated by garaging for two and three vehicle households. All these impacts in turn put excessive stress and burden on public expenditures as the total area to supply essential services is a major coefficient of cost. Everything from train schedule reliability to academic performance to hospital waiting lists worsen the further communities are forced to exist away from the main employment and economic hub.

Figure 1: Employment and population growth, Melbourne, 2006-11 4

Meanwhile, mobility needs are evolving all over the world. People’s travel habits are changing, as is the mix of transport modes and services offered to them. But it is clear that, going forward, transport providers will have to satisfy demand for services that are increasingly convenient, fast and predictable. At the same time, consumers are becoming more concerned about the sustainability of their mode of travel and some are prepared to sacrifice individual forms of transport in furtherance of that cause, leading to the successful introduction and rapid penetration of new mobility services such as car sharing and bike sharing.

Due to limits on public financing, however, public transport stakeholders are struggling to improve the attractiveness, capacity and efficiency of public transport and system innovation may be the only answer. At the same time, specialised players from other sectors – notably automotive OEMs, financial institutions/payment providers and internet businesses – are assessing opportunities to play a role in the extended mobility ecosystems of tomorrow.

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All this raises the question: what will the future business model(s) of urban mobility be?

Mobility as a Service There is a clear trend toward shared mobility: more cars and bikes are being shared in cities, both via peer-to-peer and business-to-consumer models.

Car sharing is one mobility mode set to become much more ubiquitous in the next few years. The strongest growth is expected to be seen in regions with mature urban mobility systems, such as Western Europe, North America and some Asian Pacific cities, because they are easier to target due to their existing infrastructure and an openness on the part of economically and environmentally conscious consumers to embrace options that are cheaper and more sustainable.

Car sharing has evolved from a community-based, collaborative exercise between eco-and/or cost-oriented customers with an average age of 40 (Car Sharing 1.0), to a big business which has attracted some of the world’s major car manufacturers, and a younger customer base thanks, in part, to the need for them to be app-savvy (Car Sharing 2.0). Currently operators are looking for the next levers that will turn car sharing into a mass market business model (Car Sharing 3.0).

“Mobility as a service” is changing the traditional model of car ownership (and the related value chain) with an objective of meeting consumer mobility needs in the most efficient way. Getting from Point A to Point B can be done in a multitude of ways and may mean using a privately owned vehicle for only part of the journey or not owning a car at all (especially in dense urban areas).

From an Automotive OEM(Original Equipment Manufacturer) perspective, the shift towards mobility as a service has important implications. After outsourcing most parts of production to individual specialised suppliers, automotive players are now transitioning even further away from being classic car manufacturers and venturing out in multiple directions to become “providers of mobility.”

Car sharing is a major example of the mobility-as-a-service space into which OEM’s are moving. Daimler and its Car2Go Free Floating Car Sharing service is just one example of this important and potentially disruptive business model that is already seeing rapid growth in Europe & North America. Despite currently low usage rates, a market survey by McKinsey found that a third of Germany’s urban population is a prospective user of car-sharing services. Nearly 40% of young Germans (18-to 39-year olds) living in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants indicated that ten years from now they “will use car sharing more.” This data supports industry analyst forecasts that the number of car-sharing customers in Europe might increase to over 15 million by 2020, up from 6 million today.

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BMW group is now the world’s second largest car sharing operator with DriveNow (a Joint Venture between BMW Group and Sixt, operating in Europe) and ReachNow (a100% subsidiary owned by BMW Group operating in North America). Both DriveNow and ReachNow are Free Floating Car Sharing services.

Full mobility solutions complement the use of car sharing by integrating it with other mobility offerings. From a consumer demand perspective, mobility solutions such as the Moovel app and Whim app, which offer journey advice based on integrated mobility, combining public and private transport, are gaining ground.

Spearheading Zero Emissions To the degree that mobility as a service, and specifically car-sharing as an important new model, can integrate the usage of Electric Vehicles (EVs), it offers new opportunities for EV adoption by removing some of the barriers. First, on the user side, these models eliminate the hurdle of high initial purchase price, because users do not have to buy the cars they are driving. Mobility as a service can also alleviate the “range anxiety” that makes some consumers reluctant to purchase an EV by allowing them to opt for EV usage only for driving distances that they’re comfortable with. Car Sharing fleet operators could possibly benefit from lower fuel and maintenance costs, because they should be able to realise higher utilization rates (especially in dense, urban areas) as compared to private car use. Car share operators also upgrade fleets at a greater rate than private vehicle ownership with the average retention life a of car share fleet vehicle being 3 years compared to twelve years with privately owned supply chain. This would also mean faster seeding of cheaper pre-owned electric vehicles in the private ownership supply chain.

Car2Go, DriveNow, ReachNow, Flinkster and Autolib’ are some of the car-sharing services that have already included EVs in their fleets. There are also a number of operators like eMov, Communauto, GreenMobility, EVO, and Gig who are either 100% Electric or 100% Hybrid and Electric. As the share of EVs in car-sharing fleets grows, more customers can get familiar with the new technology – potentially leading to an increase in the proportion of prospective car buyers open to purchasing an EV.

Predominantly, the global growth of EV car sharing behavior is being caused directly by the rapid expansion and competitive proposition of One-Way Free Floating Car Sharing services such as Car2Go, GreenMobility, ReachNow, DriveNow and eMov. Conversely, in markets or major cities where One Way Free Floating Car Sharing operators do not operate, there is no perceptible deployment of EV alternatives for car sharing users. Despite overwhelming growth, major international city government endorsements and consumer support for One-Way Free Floating Service overseas over the last five years, there has been no progress in Australia to consider the regulatory facilitation of such innovative and easily deployable mobility solutions.

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Case Study: DriveNow Copenhagen

September,2015

400 Free Floating all-electric i3s for DriveNow car sharing in Copenhagen, Denmark deployed by BMW is one of the largest projects of this type in the world. Partnering with bus operator Arriva Denmark, BMW was also able to interconnect the car sharing with public transport. With so many EVs available in Copenhagen, more customers will get an opportunity to test drive the cars and sales of the i3 could increase.

Following the successful introduction of the BMW i3 to the DriveNow fleets in Germany, the UK and the USA, a major step is being taken with the commissioning of 400 Free Floating BMW i3s in Copenhagen on September 3rd 2015. What is new here is an all-electric fleet which is also interconnected with public transport. The future-oriented business model stands for even more targeted orientation of individual mobility towards the needs of people in metropolitan regions.

For BMW i, car sharing using electric vehicles is an important step in opening up convenient initial access to electric mobility to the public at large, in order to reduce traffic and emissions in cities and to make a contribution there towards better quality of life.

The BMW i3 ideally fulfills the requirements of this major project. Besides being designed as an emission-free electric car, it is also the world’s first automobile offering “intermodal routing”, i.e. the incorporation of public transport services into the navigation system’s route guidance in the car.

”We are proud and very happy to introduce this innovative solution to the city of Copenhagen together with our strong business partners. Furthermore, I am confident that DriveNow will prove as a unique opportunity for people to try out and enjoy the green means of transportation. This will contribute to a breakthrough for the electric cars,” comments Nikolaj Wendelboe, CEO of Arriva Denmark.

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One-Way Free Floating Car Sharing is prohibited in commercial and residential zones due to the restrictions defined by Permissive Parking regulation under the Road Safety Act. This regulation could be amended without delay and would not require legislative changes. The emergence of One-Way Free Floating Car Sharing demonstrates that transport models driven by smart technology can help to make cities safe, more livable, vibrant, environmentally friendly and better connected. It is a safe, reliable and cheap transport alternative, and presents a viable economic solution for those with economic disadvantage living in higher density urban areas. It also addresses the intergenerational inequity for younger people struggling to afford life in inner urban areas combined with the headache and inconvenience of car ownership.

Without effective regulation, Victoria cannot access the economic and sustainability benefits afforded to shared mobility users overseas and will continue to fall behind. This will cost jobs, prevent Victorians from accessing a service they would love, and damage the State’s reputation as innovative and open for business.

There does exist a sensible, proven road to reform that preserves the equity between private vehicle owners and recognises the real distinctions between station-based car sharing, privately owned vehicles, and one-way Free Floating car sharing. These reforms would enable the effective deployment of Free Floating Car Sharing in Victoria and in turn enable the accelerated uptake of sustainable private and public EV transport ultilisation.

This submission therefore identifies the key features outlined in the inquiry’s terms of reference for:

• Effective regulatory, infrastructure, economic, employment and incentive options for supporting the uptake of privately owned electric vehicles;

• The applicability of electric vehicles in public sector fleets; • And the applicability of electric vehicles to the car share providers

market.

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2. Types of Car Sharing and Model Evolution

Car sharing is a mobility-as-a-service solution and an innovation on the traditional car rental business. At its heart, car sharing allows members to access a fleet of vehicles for their individual, short-term usage, but this is being done through three distinct service and business models:

Station based. In this model, cars can be picked up at one of a set of designated locations and need to be returned to one of those locations (sometimes the exact location from which it was picked up). These service providers offer a broad range of usually low-cost cars stationed in dedicated parking spaces around the city or region they serve. Because the reservation of cars is usually possible without smartphone usage, the older generation find this type of car sharing user friendly. The disadvantages of such operations are that the cars can be found at defined stations only (and the network of such stations is sometimes insufficiently dense) and customer processes can be relatively complex.

One-Way Free Floating Car Sharing operates without the use of set stations and allows users to pick up a car from ever-changing locations and park them anywhere (within certain geographical limits) when they are done. This model relies on providers offering middle segment or premium cars to user communities who typically identify available vehicles and their locations via a smartphone app. The advantage this free-floating model has over other car sharing options is that users are not restricted to picking up cars from fixed points and can hire a car at a moment’s notice. Just intermodal apps are available and customers often have the choice of an electric car as well as a conventional petrol or diesel-powered.

Peer-to-peer cars are part of a car sharing fleet with a unique business model. Unlike other sharing models, these cars are not owned by any organization. Instead, individual owners can rent out their own cars when not in use through an online, third-party platform. The advantages of this model is that it tends to offer cheaper rides than any other car-based system, insurance is built in and there is no need for anyone to invest in a fleet. The down side is that it does not become an effective and reliable option until a critical mass of car owners has been established. They also tend to be more neighbourhood schemes with limited geographic scope.

GoGet, a station-based operator is the largest Car Share operator in Australia with over 1,500 vehicles and 65,000 users. GoGet have no perceptible EV offering.

Car2Go (Daimler Group) is the largest Car Sharing operation in the world and now has more than 2,600,000 customers and 15,000 vehicles worldwide, operating in 7 countries and 25 cities, with the first few cities being profitably operated. Car2Go is 100% a One-Way Free Floating Service Operator and in some of the cities in which Car2Go operates, such as Amsterdam, and Stuttgart, it has a fleet fully comprised of EVs (400-600 EVs in each).

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DriveNow is another One Way Free Floating car-sharing venture set up by BMW and the European rental company Sixt. It is now active in 11 cities, 5 in Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Munich, Hamburg) and additionally in Vienna, Copenhagen, Stockholm, London, Milan and Brussels. DriveNow has over 800,000 customers and operates a fleet of more than 5,400 BMWs and MINI with 20% of its fleet being fully electric. In its latest Franchise with Arriva, DriveNow introduced a fully electric car sharing fleet of 400 BMW i3s in Copenhagen. This is just one example of DriveNow’s ambition to become a driver for eMobility with over 210,000 first electric rides conducted and over 8 Million electric kilometers driven.

ReachNow is a 100% subsidiary owned by BMW and is currently operating in North America with another One Way Free Floating car-sharing with a member base of more than 45,000 members and growing. It currently operates in Seattle, Portland and Brooklyn but ReachNow is planning to expand into many other North American cities in 2017 and 2018. The company operates a fleet of more than 1,300 BMWs and MINIs, of which 90 are fully electric vehicles.

‘Autolib’ is one-way station based car sharing program in Paris, which was launched in 2011 and now includes over 2,000 full electric BlueCars, over 4,000 charging stations, and more than 100,000 registered users. The Bolloré BlueCar uses a 30kWh lithium metal polymer battery and has a nominal range of 250 kilometers.

On the peer-to-peer side, Drivy is France’s largest peer-to-peer operator. Getaround in the US (with cars available in the Bay Area, as well as Portland, Chicago, Austin, and San Diego) has been growing since 2009, with peer-to-peer on-demand car rental by the hour, day, week, or month seeing so much demand that the start-up has recently entered into a partnership with Smart car dealership in its San Francisco location to increase available supply.

Figure 2: Car Sharing Innovation Curves5

Source: Arthur D. Little

Car sharing 1.0: Eco niche

Car sharing 2.0: OEMs get on

Car sharing 3.0: Mass market

Feat

ure

s

Demand

Time 1948 2008 2012-2015

Swiss self driver

coperative (SEFAGE)

Station based model Complicated customer processes: reservation, information provisioning Target group – Eco-oriented customers

Free floating & private P2P models Smart phone based Premium cars pilots

Is it about community? Is it about seamless and integrated solutions? Is it about convenience?

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Peer-to-peer Car Sharing in Australia is conducted by Car Next Door and DriveMyCar.

Each Car Sharing mode offers unique user benefits but it is important to understand the relevance of each mode with the multi-modal shared mobility eco-sphere in order to understand the value of each the urban mobility ecosystem.

Approximately 80% of all personal trips, and around 70% of single driver private vehicle trips, are under 10km6 and these trips are predominantly one-way asymmetrical in nature when defined by their purpose. This scenario dominates consumer preference for private vehicle ownership in an environment where there is no self-driven low cost alternative. The phenomenon accounts for the relative lack of penetration of car sharing services in markets that only have station-based and peer-to-peer offerings. Ridesharing services like Uber offers some relief but they are normally very expensive on a high frequency basis and during peak demand periods. The advent of Car Sharing 2.0 through the innovative One Way Free Floating offering has significantly disrupted the domination of private ownership.

Figure 3: Shared Mobility Eco-Sphere, Inov3607

Overall, for inner urban consumers, One Way Free Floating Car Sharing in concert with Station Based Sharing and Peer-to-Peer Sharing offers a

Bike andWalking

Carsharing

Car pooling& Dynamic

Routing

TNC(Taxis/Uber

Etc)

Short-Term rental

Public Transport(subway,bus,train,etc.)

Distance

Fle

xib

ility

Free-Floatingor

One Way

Station basedReturn

Peer-to-peer

PPPsubsub

<10Km >10Km

80% Trips

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complete and viable solution for an alternative to private car ownership.

Figure 4: Cost per Km vs Convenience Private Vehicle Modes : <80km/8hrs per week

Car Sharing 3.0 Once One-Way Free Floating Car Sharing operators have established in a marketplace, urban mobility becomes ready for the evolution to Car Sharing 3.0 and the benefits of fully integrated mass market transport solutions.

Figure 5: Evolution of Car Sharing 2.0 to Integrated Mass Market Solutions

The transition to 100% Electric is likely to occur at an accelerated rate once the transition to Car Sharing 2.0 is complete for cities. Integration with public transport is an opportunity already being explored in cities like Helsinki. Floating Point Bike Sharing is exploding in Asia through Mobike and services in Europe are already expanding to complete an integration between Car

Higher Cost PER KM

Lower Cost PER KM

LowerConven ence

H gherConven ence

100% ElectricFREE Access

3.0

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Free Floating Car Share Showcase

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Sharing and Bike Sharing. Freemium Travel is an exciting development where travel is subsidised by 3rd Parties utilising the impact of shared mobility. WaiveCar in Santa Monica is a 100% Electric One-Way Free Floating Car Sharing operator who offers the first two hours courtesy of advertisers who leverage telematically monitored rooftop digital signage on the vehicles. By far the most exciting and far-reaching benefit of Car Sharing 3.0 will be the transition to fully autonomous shared vehicles. Uber is already trialing these services in Pittsburgh and more North American cities are inviting Uber to participate in their quests for Urban Mobility excellence.

This new age of Urban Mobility (Urban Mobility 3.0) will totally transform cities and communities;

- Thousands of Lives will be saved - Auto Crime will be non-existent - Carbon Emissions will be slashed - Road Congestion will disappear - Leisure Time will increase - Productivity will soar - Household Transportation Costs will plummet - Parking Spaces will disappear - Independent Mobility Access for the elderly and disabled - Increased Walking, Cycling and Bike Sharing

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3. Impacts of Free Floating EV Car Sharing Electric Vehicles are generally cheaper to build, maintain and operate, so mobility services would have a natural preference for them. If such services could coordinate across an entire fleet, they could sidestep typical consumer concerns about electric car battery range and charging station availability. 8

Since most trips involve only one or two passengers, mobility services could further reduce car and energy cost by assembling fleets of mostly smaller cars.

The potentially virtuous interaction between mobility services and electric vehicles does not exist for driver-owned car-sharing cars, however. Individual drivers are incented to optimise their own range and flexibility, and therefore avoid electric vehicles.

The combination of free-floating car sharing service with electric vehicles is attractive to both society and users. Electric Vehicles contribute to fossil free transportation, decrease global warming (at least if renewable electricity is used), oil dependency, particle and noise emissions. However, there are also currently clear drawbacks with high purchasing price, slow recharging and limited operation range.

Car sharing services offer more flexible alternatives to public transport, without burdening the users with high investment costs. In a Free Floating Car Sharing service, users can find and return the car more or less anywhere within a given area, thereby enabling one-way trips. Studies have shown that this type of service is very attractive to the users, and it also increases the utilization of the electric vehicles, giving a faster payback on the operator’s investment. This integral influence of Free Floating Car Sharing on Electrical Vehicle fleet composition, is highlighted conspicuously in markets or major cities where One Way Free Floating Car Sharing operators do not operate and as a consequence there is no distinctive deployment of Electric Vehicle alternatives for car sharing users of station based services.

The Free Floating EV car sharing service commercial potential lies mainly in the fact that the cars can be utilised much more than privately owned vehicles or station based car sharing vehicles. This in combination with the low driving costs of electric cars compensate for the high purchasing price. Even if the business case currently is worse than when using cheaper petrol driven cars in the service, electric vehicles and car sharing services are beneficial for society and there are thus reasons for public actors to contribute to increasing the attractiveness. This can be done for example by dedicating parking places in city centers specifically to electric vehicles and to attractive costs for car sharing companies, and by providing sufficiently many and well located charging stations.

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This type of service will also lead the way to other ways of EV usage through increased access to charging places, increased consciousness about the electric alternative among car buyers, and improved scale of economy in EV production.

One Way Free Floating Car Sharing services offer advantages to deployment of EV vehicles due to the fact that dedicated locations are not required, meaning that there is no need for contiguous charging points at vehicle stations. One Way Free Floating vehicles also achieve more trips per charge and active fleet technicians can re-deploy vehicles to centralised charging hub stations. Once vehicles are charged they are free for users to access and are naturally distributed within the geographic sharing zone. Incentives like bonus minutes can also be offered to users to end trips at charging hubs for vehicles.9

For the inner urban inhabitants, it is relatively easy to motivate a membership in a One Way Free Floating Car Sharing service compared with owning the car, even if many private car owners have little knowledge about what their cars actually cost them. Companies and organizations can add goodwill as a benefit, since using an EV car sharing service indicates care for the environment. For the city itself it is important that the cars are used where the benefits for the environment are greatest, i.e. in the city center and around the inner urban ring.10

A recent study by the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California11 found conclusively “that car sharing programs with EVs within their fleets play a role in promoting greater adoption of these technologies.”

Figure 6: Changes in Percent of Experimental Population Expecting to Purchase Various Vehicles After EV Car sharing Exposure 12

“This is in addition to the other favorable impacts of car sharing, such as facilitating reduced vehicle ownership and overall driving. In light of current

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model availability and EV costs, these programs provide exposure to a demographic that otherwise has a lower propensity to own such vehicles. The result of this access is an improved impression of Zero Emission Vehicles and a stronger affinity toward ZEV technology.“

The research concluded that “on a long term basis, car sharing programs could act as gateways to improving market penetration of EVs. Car sharing members exposed to these vehicles are also likely to recommend them to peers and assist in breaking down misconceptions that may exist among current nonusers (e.g., limited range concerns). Thus, car sharing programs that include low and zero emission vehicles in their fleets could be a valuable tool in diffusing these technologies to other population segments.”

A full copy of the TSRC research paper is attached with this submission.

Figure 7: Comparison of EV Considerations

Zero Emission Accessible Autonomy There are major moves forming part of the strategic gamesmanship underway in the colliding automotive and technology ecosystems. Numerous players are jockeying for position at the confluence of driverless cars, electric vehicles and car sharing.

At first glance, the three are distinct business categories with unique technical, strategic and market challenges. A virtuous cycle, however, links them.

EV Travel Considerations PrivateOwned

Station Based

1.0

Free Floating

2.0

Lower Costs of Ownership vs ICELower Cost per Km vs ICERange Anxiety AmeliorationCharging ConvenienceNon-Contiguous Charge StationsOne Way Asymmetrical Trips

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13

Report: Shared Mobility Imperative

Three Revolutions in Urban Transportation

May, 2017

The world is on the cusp of three revolutions in transportation: vehicle electrification, automation, and widespread shared mobility. Separately or together, these revolutions will fundamentally change urban transportation around the world over the next three decades.

Each revolution addresses different societal needs, but can also lead to societal costs:

• Vehicle electrification can cut vehicle energy use and CO2 emissions. However, for electrification to have maximum benefits, power generation must be strongly shifted away from fossil fuels and deeply decarbonised. In addition, these vehicles will likely remain expensive for at least one more decade.

• Automation can provide important safety benefits, reduce labor costs, and enable cheaper travel and more productive use of time. However, by lowering the cost of travel in terms of time and money, automation would likely induce more travel and dramatically reduce the number of jobs in transportation.

• Shared mobility, whether through shared vehicle trips or public transport, can lead to more efficient use of urban space, reduce traffic congestion, enable more walking and cycling, cut energy use and emissions, and generally improve urban livability. However, this would require large increases in load factors (passengers per vehicle trip), and a range of strong policies to achieve.

Our central finding is that while vehicle electrification and automation may produce potentially important benefits, without a corresponding shift toward shared mobility and greater use of transit and active transport, these two revolutions could significantly increase congestion and urban sprawl, while also increasing the likelihood of missing climate change targets.

Overall, this analysis suggests that a combination of electrification, automation, and multimodal shared vehicle trips would bring by far the greatest societal benefits for every country in this study. But achieving the full Three Revolution scenario will require unprecedented levels of policy support; it will require creativity and vigilance to ensure that not one or two, but all three, revolutions move forward and to prepare cities around the world for a new era of travel.

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Driverless Cars And Car Sharing Services Driverless cars could significantly reduce the cost of ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft by eliminating the largest operational cost — the human driver. Likewise, Car sharing services like Car2go and ReachNow could be made significantly cheaper due to the lack of need for small walking distance accessibility, improved vehicle performance, reduced damage and premium parking costs.14

Figure 8: Virtuous Cycle link EVs, Car Sharing and Driverless Cars15

Researchers at MIT16 and Stanford17 have shown that driverless cars could further reduce cost of car sharing services by enabling intelligent coordination to minimise congestion, keep the driverless fleet in balance and better serve anticipated demand. Several studies, estimate that driverless car-sharing services could operate at as little as 20% of the cost of individual car ownership. 18

These advantages leave ample room for driverless-car-enabled business models that give significant savings to passengers (over individual ownership and driving) while enabling profits to service providers.

Aggressive adoption by mobility services would jumpstart and accelerate the

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spread of driverless cars. Such services would be able to pay far more for driverless cars than consumers might otherwise be willing to pay.

Consumer adoption would be minimal at such price points but mobility services could buy millions of them. The study by Burns and Jordon, for example, estimated that 25,000 driverless cars would be needed to serve a small city like Ann Arbor, MI. For reference, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 228 cities in the U.S. larger than Ann Arbor. 19

Electric Vehicles And Driverless Cars Because they are modular and lend themselves well to computerization, electric vehicles facilitate the rapid development and testing of driverless technology.

On the flip side, fully driverless cars reduce the number of car components, such as steering wheels and driver acceleration and braking systems, thereby further simplifying car design and cost.

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4. Regulating Free Floating EV Car Sharing

Free Floating Fundamentals One-Way Free Floating Car Sharing consists of making vehicles available within a delimited area (typically 100-200 Square Kilometres) around the dense urban centre of a city.

The clients of this service can spontaneously take a vehicle (at most with a reservation of 15-30 minutes to ensure the availability of a vehicle parked at a distance away) by identifying it on the operator’s application from a smartphone App. Available vehicles are parked in residential and permissive parking spaces in the city, typically on public roads, for which a parking authorization would have been negotiated between the operator and the city.

Figure 9 : Free Floating App Design courtesy VULOG

In this type of service, the customer can drive wherever they need, including outside the delimited area. The only constraint is that they can only terminate the rental of the vehicle by returning it within the delimited area, using one of the authorised parking spaces.

That is why this activity is called “free-floating”, because the fleet of operator’s vehicles remains within the defined area but constantly changes locations. The use of this type of service requires a good knowledge of the smartphone and a good ability to find your way in the city.

These “free-floating” services, widely spread by Car2Go (Daimler’s subsidiary) and DriveNow (BMW’s joint venture subsidiary), are usually charged by the minute and are mainly used for one-way trips, after which the client leaves the car and makes it available to another customer of the service, which will then be able to use it for a new trip.

Youtube Clip DriveNow Tutorial explains the user experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dJcf5uFMAI

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Existing Car Sharing Parking Concessions For owners of private vehicles in Melbourne there are currently three ways to legally park on streets;

- Permit parking - Time-restricted parking (Permissive Parking) - Paid parking (Permissive Parking)

Without question the majority of councils in Melbourne recognise the significant community benefits of fractional vehicle ownership through Car Sharing. These existing policies support and quantify the empirical relativities of fractional ownership by allowing for dedicated permanent parking bays subject to Permit Area regulations to be distributed throughout the council area in both Commercial and Residential zones.

Figure 10 : Annual Benefit and Cost of each Car Share Vehicle in the City of Port Phillip20

This approach essentially augments the combination of permissive parking locations and residential parking entitlements into dedicated locations. The necessity for this is somewhat dictated by Car Sharing 1.0 technology and business model limitations due to the need to provide for the guaranteed return of vehicles to a fixed point.

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Free Floating Parking Concessions One-Way Free Floating Car Sharing adopts the same principled user entitlements hierarchy applicable to private vehicle owners versus station based car share users, in that it considers reasonably the same empirical relativity of fractional ownership in relation to real permissive and residential parking demand; ie each vehicle suppresses the equivalent parking demand of at least 10 other private vehicles.

Figure 11: Port Philip City Council’s Hierarchy of Parking Need21

However, rather than create a complex discriminatory, overly administrative and expensive allocation process for councils, Free Floating does not directly discriminate between vehicle types and spaces. Instead, Free Floating recognises that users of vehicles operated for private purposes can be treated differently based on their individual impact on parking demand. This allows for concessions to be given to users of Free Floating vehicles parked in permissive and residential spaces. For example; a Free Floating vehicle parked in a permissive zone is effectively providing access for 10 more permissive spaces and as a result could legitimately occupy the space10 times longer than a privately owned vehicle before any relative public detriment could be asserted. If a Free Floating vehicle occupies a permissive parking location for less than ten times the permitted aggregate time then it is reasonable for that vehicle to accrue time credit for the fleet as a whole and a collective approach to mitigating any detriment is likely to ensure that there is

Hierarchy of Parking Need for Local Streets

No Standing Zones

Existing Property Access

Public Transport Stops and Taxi Zones

Car Share Vehicle Spaces

Disabled Parking Bays

Residential Parking

Drop Off/Pick Up Zones

Loading Zones

Residential Visitor Parking

Bike Parking

Customer Parking Spaces

Local Employee Parking Spaces

Bus Parking

Commuter Parking

Hierarchy of Parking Need for Shopping Strips

No Standing Zones

Existing Property Access

Public Transport Stops and Taxi Zones

Disabled Parking Bays

Loading Zones

Bike Parking

Drop Off/Pick Up Zones

Customer Parking Spaces

Car Share Vehicle Spaces

Residential Spaces

Residential Visitor Spaces

Local Employee Parking Spaces

Bus Parking

Commuter Parking

HighestPriority

LowestPriority

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no relevant detriment to the community based on each individual councils user hierarchy of parking needs.

Free Floating operators monitor this activity for city councils to ensure on balance their services are working within the guidelines and principles of the concessions granted. According to VULOG, around 60% of all Free Floating vehicles are used once every 3 hours and this demand is likely to be higher during peak daytime hours in high demand commercial areas. This statistic translates to a net benefit of higher vacancy rates for permissive parking spaces overall when Free Floating systems are in use.

No Public Detriment According to a long term study by Erneuerbar-mobil (Renewable Mobility) in Germany released in April 2016, there were no major changes to the fundamental tendencies of parking distribution as a result of Free Floating Car Sharing based on major parking precinct analysis in Berlin and Munich.22

Figure 12 : Parking duration distribution on the publicly accessible parking areas of the main roads (Bundesallee, Handjerystraße, Rheinstraße, Roennebergstraße, Schmiljanstraße, Stubenrauchstraße), Thursday. 6.6.2013 vs 16.04.2015 23

To understand the potential impact of a Free Floating network on a Melbourne council area, we will consider the City of Port Philip which already has around 150 station based locations and has considered a target of 300 by around 2021 across their 21 Square Kilometre area. Presently, there are approximately 51,000 on-street parking spaces and approximately 52,000 privately owned vehicles to be accommodated with on-street and off-street parking not counting visitor and business parking requirements24. The 300 shared vehicle spaces represent a planned impact of 0.6% of available spaces. It is likely that the remaining 150 spaces, could be fulfilled by two or more Free Floating operators over the next five years without the need for more dedicated stations. Therefore, Free Floating would have a zero impact on the council’s own targeted impacts and no relative community detriment whatsoever. Importantly, Free Floating vehicles do not occupy a space

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Free Floating Parking Restrictions Typically, Free Floating parking guidelines limit access to very short timed segment zones and in some cases restricted high congestion precincts as well as logical on-road zones that are not applicable to short term private vehicle parking. In the case of Melbourne this would be;

- Clearways & Tramways - Loading Zones - Time Restricted Zones with minimum under 30 Minutes - Paid parking zones with minimum under 30 Minutes - Disabled Parking Zones - Extreme Congestion Precincts - Special Use Precincts eg Hospitals

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Given that the costs for the large-scale deployment of charging infrastructure in Europe are too significant to be borne by public sector alone (one slow two-plug charging station costs ~EUR 2,000 in hardware alone, two charges per vehicle required), one of the most critical challenges for the EV sector is to achieve commercial viability in the deployment of charging infrastructure in the coming years. The Basics Of “Wired” EV Charging Charging PHEVs and BEVs can take several forms. The power level of the charging station (in terms of kW), the electrical current it uses, the plug and type of battery all determine which EVs can be charged where and how long it will take to charge them.

Power level. The power level of the charging source, expressed in kW, is defined by both the voltage (V) and the current (A) of the power supply and determines how quickly a battery can be charged. The power level of chargers ranges rather widely – from 3.3 kW (slow) to 50 kW and higher (fast3). Lower power levels are typical of residential chargers and take several hours to fully charge a battery. Chargers of 3.3 kW and 7 kW can charge the battery of a Nissan LEAF in about 8 or 4 hours respectively. For consumers wishing to use higher power levels for charging at home, upgrades of the connection with the local grid are often required. At the other end of the power level range, fast chargers of 43 and 50 kW are available, with Tesla rolling out Superchargers of 120 kW. Electrical current. Since electricity is provided by the grid in AC and batteries can only store DC, the electricity provided by the grid to the EV needs to be converted. Cars that are able to charge at an AC charging station are equipped with an on-board AC-to-DC converter. With DC fast-charging stations (the most common type), the converter is integrated into the charging station, so that the charging station itself converts AC electricity from the grid into DC electricity for the EV. Plug. Currently, multiple plugs and sockets are used to connect vehicles to charging stations. For slow charging, a European standard plug (Type 2 “Mennekes”) has been proposed as standard, and is most common. For fast charging, three connector standards are currently in use: The Japanese CHAdeMO, US/European CCS “Combo”, and Tesla Supercharger. Battery size. Different EV models have different power level thresholds and current types that they can accommodate, and this capacity is determined by battery size (expressed in kWh). EVs with small batteries (such as many PHEV models) are often able to charge at a maximum of 3.7 kW; these models include the Mitsubishi Outlander, Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid, Opel Ampera, Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid version (all 3.7 kW). Full BEVs are completely dependent on their battery for their driving range and usually have larger batteries

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that can handle higher power levels for charging. Examples include the Nissan LEAF (24 kWh battery size, able to charge at 7 kW AC or 50 kW DC), the Renault Zoe (22 kWh battery size, able to charge at AC charging stations, up to 43 kW), and the Tesla Model S (60kWh or 85kWh battery, able to charge at 10 or 22kW AC, or at1 20kW DC using Tesla’s Supercharger stations).

In addition to the number of wired charging stations deployed, the type of station – slow-charging vs. fast-charging – is an important factor in understanding the level of charging network coverage. For public charging network in Europe, current ratio is roughly 20 slow-charging stations for every fast-charging station. Infrastructure for Free Floating EVs In Melbourne today there is a grossly inadequate provision of non-Tesla public Level 2 and Level 3 fast charging EV infrastructure to support Free Floating EVs. This submission considers the establishment of EV Fast-Charging hubs across the Free Floating deployment zone exclusively for the use of Free Floating network operators. These hubs could be operated out of private locations including council car parks, parking garages, service stations, car-wash operations, car dealerships, tyre retailers, shopping centres and re-purposed locations suitable for vehicle access up to ten vehicles. The most effective BEV for Car Sharing operations is a Range Extended Electric Vehicle. For the purpose of this submission we have considered the BMW i3 (94ah) with Range Extender (i3REX) and any of its US or European equivalents. The Range Extender adds a lightweight and efficient two-cylinder gasoline engine. When the initial charge is depleted to approximately 5 percent, the Range Extender automatically starts to maintain the battery’s state of charge. The engine only produces electricity to charge the battery.

Figure 15: BMW i3 REX

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The i3REX has a range up to 312km and a current retail value of approximately $80,000. The required charging station for this Vehcile and its equivalents is a Level 3 CCS DCFC solution. An initial deployment of around 75 to 100 i3REX or equivalent vehicles across 3 network operators in an area of 100 SqKm would require the establishment of ten evenly distributed Charging Hubs with an initial installation of 4 DCFC 350Kw+ chargers but with a capacity to add another 4 to 8 chargers. The sites could also include a solar canopy to help power the chargers, as well as backup batteries.This would provide a medium to long term runway of up to 500 Free Floating BEVs. Access could be granted to owners of private electric vehicles subject to the demand requirements of the Free Floating operators. The economic efficacy of this proposal assumes that network operators would use one fleet technician crew provided by a Free Floating car sharing specialist 3rd party that could be an independent company or a joint venture between the operators. All EV charging would then be managed by the Fleet Technician crews.

Figure 16 : EVgo Super Charger Station – Scheduled for Deployment in California June 2017

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State Government Incentives The following incentives for increased EV composition should be considered:

Infrastructure:

- 100% Capital contribution to cost of establishing and upgrading 10 Private Charging Hubs (Estimate $3.0-$6.0M)

- 100% Operational Occupancy Expense contribution to subsidise occupancy expenses of 10 Private Charging Hubs (Estimate $600-$900K p.a)

Operations:

- Free Registration Stamp Duty for Free Floating BEVs ($500-$600 p.a. per EV)

- Waiver of Operator Parking Liability Fees for Free Floating BEVs ($500-$600 p.a. per EV)

- Operator Rebate for every BEV deployed deducted from Remuneration fees ($5,000 per BEV back to $0 Remuneration)

Other Incentives:

- Establishment of dedicated Free Parking for Free Floating BEVs in high congestion precincts

- Rate subsidy for active users of BEV Free Floating Rentals - Subsidy for Green Electricity supply

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Parking Concessions

- Time-Restricted Zones 30 Minutes or more* - Paid Parking Zones 30 Minutes or more* - Ungated Council Car Parks* - Residential Permit Zones

*Users must end their trips to receive the concession. i.e. they must relinquish their vehicle for at least 30 Minutes to be reserved by the next user. Users are not able to “squat” any individual vehicle using the 30min pre-reservation feature.

Parking Restrictions

- Clearways - Tramways - Loading Zones - Time Restricted Zones under 30 Minutes - Paid parking zones under 30 Minutes - Disabled Parking Zones - High Congestion Precincts

Parking Remuneration

- Operator Zone Fee: $500 per Square Kilometre per operator - Parking Liability Minima 4c per Vehicle Hour - Schedule of parking liability fees (see below)

Figure 20: Council Parking Liability Remuneration Schedule

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8. Transition Process The case for reform is well established. Existing regulations do not accommodate safe and innovative models such as One Way Free Floating Car Sharing. The Victorian Government has a duty to regulate in the area of mobility as a service: to encourage choice, competition, safety, sustainability and innovation. The case for One Way Free Floating Car Sharing as a spearhead for Zero Emission Vehicle travel is also well established. The challenges surrounding effective electrification of Free Floating fleets through infrastructure and incentives, should not inhibit the primary establishment of Free Floating Fleets given the significant stand alone sustainability and economic benefits to the community. In fact, the preliminary establishment of Free Floating services per se will create a conducive and propitious competitive environment for shared vehicle mobility providers to accelerate the transition from Car Sharing 2.0 to Car Sharing 3.0. The following transition process is recommended as the most practical and sensible approach:

- Establish Regulation Framework to allow Free Floating Car Sharing - Invite International and Local Operators to express interest in

launching in Melbourne - Establish deployment agreements with a minimum of 2 operators and

a maximum of 3 operators, plus 1 fleet services operator - Enact the regulatory reforms - Launch One Way Free Floating service with 100% ICE vehicles - Establish a working group between regulator and operators to

establish guidelines and principles for EV charging infrastructure to deploy first tranche of BEVs

- Enact reforms for incentives - Commence rollout of BEVs into Free Floating Fleets

Under this process the objective of deploying 1000 BEVs in Free Floating Car Sharing fleets covering a 180 Square Area of Melbourne is reasonably achievable by 2025-2026 if the reform process commences immediately. This will be equivalent to the impact of removing the all GHG Emissions of 10,000 - 12,000 private vehicles in Melbourne.

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Reason 3: Free Floating Car Sharing allows you to be just as spontaneous as you could be if you had your own car outside your front door. Free Floating Car Sharing isn't a replacement for public transport, but instead a complementary product that makes users more independent from timetables. The car doesn't have to be collected from and returned to fixed stations; it can be rented and parked anywhere within the home area. Reason 4: Free Floating Car Sharing means freedom when choosing a suitable car: a compact car for a quick shopping trip or a spacious five-seater for a journey with the whole family. Reason 5: Users of Free Floating Car Sharing are doing something good for the environment and surroundings. Free Floating Car Sharing redistributes traffic, where otherwise private cars would be used, and therefore eases the burden on cities in two respects: parking spaces and carbon emissions. In the purely electric fleets and when certified green electricity is used, Free Floating vehicles produce almost no carbon emissions. Reason 6: A car from the Free Floating fleet is the perfect replacement for a second car: the car-sharing vehicle offers family members who only need a car every now and then the chance to be more independent and increase their own mobility. With no advance arrangements or blocking of dates in the social or family calendar necessary. Reason 7: Parking stress is minimised by Free Floating Car Sharing, as users have a free choice of parking spaces. They can park the car they've rented at short notice in any public parking space in the business region. Depending on the city, there are even some additional, designated parking spaces available, or permits to use residents' car parks. Reason 8: Having your own car is often handy, but can also become a burden. In Free Floating Car Sharing, the driver is only responsible for the car during the journey; they aren't tied down to a car of their own. Reason 9: Of course, we could give up driving altogether, but for some occasions we prefer to have the privacy while driving, unlike public transport or taxis. Reason 10: Free Floating Car Sharing is synonymous with modern mobility. In urban environments above all, networked mobility concepts – including changing from one means of transport to another – are the future. For example: Travel first by train, then drive to a bar in a Free-Floating car share vehicle, but then take an Uber back home.

Free Floating Advantages versus Station Based Round Trip Car Sharing 1. Superior User Experience Undoubtedly, the main benefit of One Way Free Floating Car Sharing is flexibility. The ability to access a vehicle spontaneously and then rent the vehicle for an unlimited time without the need to return it to its origin, is a game changer in Car Sharing and a huge disruption to the current dominant paradigm of private vehicle ownership.

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Figure 24: User Experience Summary – Station Based vs Free Floating

2. Suppression of non-User annoyances For councils endeavouring to implement strategic parking and sustainable transport strategies, the cumbersome and costly administrative methodology of allocating permanent parking stations within distinct neighbourhood areas is subject to challenges and difficulties brought on by objections and concerns from non-users and/or private vehicle owning residents.

These concerns are commonly related to the permanent, conspicuous and fixed nature of the station based system. Under the regulatory framework of a Free Floating system there is no community approval process to consider as users are treated as equal partners with vehicle owning residents. Additionally, the profile and ever changing nature of vehicle positions make the ongoing impact at any fixed location imperceptible to non-users.

Figure 25: Non-User Annoyance Summary – Station Based vs Free Floating

Convenience Attributes Station Based

Free Floating

Instant Authentication & Registration ✓Spontaneous Reservation ✓Mobile App Reserve & Unlock ✓Unlimited Rental ✓By the Minute Rental ✓One Way Asymmetrical Trips ✓

Fixity & Inefficiency Affects Station Based

Free Floating

Conspicuous A-Grade Locations N/A

Conspicuous Multi-Vehicle Ranks N/A

Conspicuous Vacant Rank Spaces N/A

Permanent Location Occupation N/A

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3. Sustainable Scalability If Car Sharing and urban mobility services are to reach their full potential there is a practical limitation to how many dedicated stations can be created in convenient locations compared to the random temporal distribution and fluid nature of Free Floating vehicles. Free Floating networks naturally adapt to changing demand and can be easily altered by operators by the rapid insertion of new vehicles to meet demand or the easy redistribution of excess vehicles from areas of low activity. Responses to phenomena like major events can also be adapted to quickly.

Figure 26: Sustainability Advantages for Scaleable Growth Summary

4. Greater Impact on Reduction of Car Ownership One Way Free Floating services attract a higher number of users per capita within a concentric geographic area and have a much higher frequency of utilisation compared to station based services. There is a correlation between the intensity in which the car-sharing services of the individual providers are used and the giving up/not buying of vehicles. 27

Figure 27: Extrapolation of cars given up28

Fluidity & Efficiency Affects Station Based

Free Floating

Fluid Demand Balancing ✓Rapid Deployment ✓Low Impact Scalability ✓Administrative Efficiency ✓

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This would move beyond the one agency App such that when a user enters their desired destination, all shared mobility options are presented, including walking, bike sharing, taxi, Uber, public transport, and shared car. Importantly, the App is intended to offer multi-modal combinations, which may include a component of One-Way Car Sharing, in order to access a rail network, to complete a journey. The user is able to find and pay for the transport services using nothing other than a smartphone. This scenario embeds many of the core principles of integrated transport planning due to its focus on the door-to-door experience of the user.30 Services like Whim in Helsinki already to a certain extent offer this experience.

7. Big Data Analytics The expansion of connected vehicles that are 100% monitored for activity in real time and that can be linked back to users unique residential locations is a huge step forward for urban and transport planning strategists within the local, state and federal spheres. This is especially valuable information through the prism of inter-modal activity reporting. Free Floating Car Sharing operators can provide this rich data to transport bodies or aggregators to assist in better long term planning and improved services including parking management and public transport integration.

The ubiquity of the smartphone has created greater demand and opportunity for real time travel information. Free Floating Car Sharing can harness this opportunity to help make smarter transport choices and allow operators to work with Councils and the Victorian Government to encourage a whole-of-government approach to Open Data, including the development of APIs related to all modes of transport, with a view of creating possibilities for 3rd party developers to create multi-modal journal planning Apps.31

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10. Free Floating Dynamics Retail Pricing Model – Renters join for $35 but most operators offer generous free sign on and

bonus minutes when targeting user acquisition or launching in a market – $25 per annum Member Fee, sometimes waived for active members – Trip Cost (includes fuel, parking & insurance)

– 55c -75c per Minute, $18 per Hour, $85 per Day – 40c-50c Per km click rate after 200Km

Home Zone Area Home Zones vary subject to city density and user demand but a typical mature home zone is around 170 Square Kilometres with a car distribution of 2.6 vehicles per Square Kilometre and a user composition of around 80 users per car.

Figure 30: Home Zone Composition Car2go North American Cities

User Profile Users profiles of profitable and successful programs around the world are typically geo-demographically defined and it is not surprising that users are predominantly urbanites living in higher than average population density zones. This predicates a likelihood of younger, more affluent apartment dwellers living in childless households. Education standards and social awareness are also likely to be higher than population average for this group. This profile and population density requirement accurately portrays the residents of inner Melbourne and Sydney.

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Figure 32: Car Acessibility Steady State Phenomena

In addition to relying on the long-term stability of accessibility, Free Floating Car Sharing operators employ vehicle redistribution using their fleet technician crews - from areas with excess vehicles to areas without them—to reduce the required fleet size. Many fleet operators do not need to react quickly to excessive availability in a particular area, in that the system tends to have excess locations due to increased destination demand that invariably become high origin demand. This natural demand balancing of fleets can be viewed in a time lapse demonstration of real movements for Car2go in Seattle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJGlZpgx3JA As can be observed from the video clip the system maintains a good accessibility level and does not have any inactivity in areas with excess vehicles. The system accessibility for users overall is normally supported by three other factors;

- Willingness of users to walk further than 500m - Presence of multiple operators within one zone - UBER and other ridesharing options

One of the most common misconceptions about One Way Free Floating Car Sharing is that it is incorrectly compared with One Way Station Based systems like Bike Sharing, which have significant balancing problems with bike stations exceeding capacity and others running out. The mistake here is that the systems are distinctly different in nature and science. The One Way Free floating system is an homogeneous closed system undergoing complex irreversible interactions between many (almost infinite) random agents such as the number of active users, stochastic demand, random origin points, random destination points, random temporal utility, and random geo-spatial utility. Station Based One Way systems are non-homogenous open systems with a very limited variation in agent outcomes.

LONG RUN ACTIVITY OF OPTIMUM FLOATING FLEET

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incentivises its customers to use the vehicle by reducing the per minute rate by a significant amount in order to position the car in a better area. In the app customers can see a percentage sign above the vehicle indicating the discounted rate. ReachNow in North America also offer users discounts to reserve vehicles in areas where there is an increasing oversupply and take them away from that area.

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12. Conclusion

Given the scale of the looming crisis in urban mobility for Melbourne and the fact that the solutions to it are already available, it is reasonable to ask:

Why has the potential for innovation not been unleashed?

The answer is that the management of urban mobility operates in an environment that is too fragmented and hostile to innovation. Our urban management systems do not allow market players to compete and establish business models that bring demand and supply into a natural balance. Current mobility systems adapt poorly to changing demands, are weak in combining single steps of the travel chain into an integrated offering, find it difficult to learn from other systems, and shun an open, competitive environment. Collaboration on solutions is rare. Rewards for investors are rather meagre.

Additionally, Melbourne does not yet have a clear vision and strategy on how their mobility systems should look in the future. There appears to be no clear reflection of the synergies or incompatibilities between the initiatives, too limited integration between the different modes of transportation and no convincing explanation of how desired results should be achieved by allotting responsibilities, setting deadlines, and instituting monitoring procedures. This lack of synergies between isolated initiatives leads to a sub-optimal outcome in terms of urban mobility performance, which calls for a more holistic approach.

Finally, decisions are being based on “public sector actions” and do not sufficiently address interfaces with the private sector and what contribution it could make to the achievement of urban mobility goals. The private sector needs to be involved in the goal-setting process.

Urban mobility is one of the toughest system-level challenges facing actors of the mobility ecosystems. In the future, innovative mobility services will be driven less by improvements in single transport modes than by effective integration.

Free Floating Car Sharing demonstrates that innovative technology with a smart operating model improves cities. It offers cities a no-cost, scaleable transport alternative to supplement existing transport systems and reduce inner urban vehicle congestion.

Moreover, Free Floating Car Sharing offers a definitive, practical and evolutionary pathway into a sustainable Zero Emission urban mobility future through the accelerated uptake of Electric Vehicles.

Policymakers must acknowledge these opportunities and ensure that regulatory settings encourage the development of this system.

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13. References

free floating car sharing opportunity for a definitive ... · car sharing has evolved from a...

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