Individuals’ willingness to rent their personal vehicle to others: An exploratory assessment of peer-to-peer carsharing

• Main Authors: Natalia Barbour, Yu Zhang, Fred Mannering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-05-01
• Series: Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives
• Subjects: Travel behavior; Random parameters; Ordered probit; Shared mobility; Sharing economy; Carsharing
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259019822030049X

The renting of personal vehicles for monetary compensation (peer-to-peer carsharing or abbreviated as P2P carsharing) has become increasingly popular in the U.S. In applications, the fleet of peer-to-peer carsharing vehicles typically consists of personally owned vehicles identified and coordinated by a third-party company. However, little is known about the attitudes, perceptions, and decision process through which individuals decide to offer their car for rent in such peer-to-peer carsharing. To explore individuals' attitudes and perceptions regarding the act of supplying a personal vehicle to peer-to-peer vehicle fleet, a stated preference survey was designed and disseminated between February and April of 2018 where survey respondents were asked how likely they would be to rent their car (extremely unlikely, unlikely, unsure, likely, extremely likely). The survey questionnaire collected detailed socio-demographic information, as well as data on travel behavior and travel patterns. These data were then used to estimate a random parameters ordered probit model of their likelihood of renting their car. Some of the variables found statistically significant determinants of the willingness to rent a personal vehicle were gender, age, income, household composition, vehicle ownership, living location with respect to a grocery store, and participation in other shared mobility modes. The above findings and especially the gender and income related variables were found to complement prior literature and offered additional layer of understanding of the factors determining the supply side of peer-to-peer carsharing. The findings of this study offer some initial insights into the factors that may determine the success or failure of this novel transportation alternative.