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Estimating the GHG emission reduction from expanding sharing economy mobility services in the city of Adelaide
In Australia, various City Councils, including the City of Adelaide, are pursuing carbon neutrality at municipal-scale based on their operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As passenger transport is a major component of city operational GHG emissions, there is an opportunity for shared mobility services to play a role in reducing those emissions. This preliminary carbon modelling report has focussed on the GHG benefit from expanding shared mobility services in the Adelaide Local Government Area, although the results should be equally valid in other similar inner-urban precincts.
The sharing economy is undergoing massive expansion, with exemplars like the car sharing market expected to involve millions of consumers globally by 2020. Increasingly, consumers consider public sharing systems a viable alternative to product ownership, a paradigm that competes with the dominant logic of private ownership and control. Sharing systems have evolved as a disruptive technology driven business concept on the premise of providing end-users with access to the benefits of product ownership, but without the commitment to capital expenditure. This research project is designed to investigate the potential social, economic and carbon benefits of the sharing economy mobility services by answering the question: To what extent can sharing economy services deliver the low-carbon mobility needs of those who live, work or play within inner-urban precincts? The project has four main parts:
- Barriers to the provision of sharing economy mobility services
- Servicing the needs of major inner-urban trip generators
- Mapping demand for sharing economy mobility services
- Quantifying the carbon abatement impact.
This is the Final Report of part 4 and draws on the findings from parts 1, 2 & 3 to quantify the carbon abatement potential due to greater commercial provision and user participation in sharing economy mobility services. The Carbon Neutral Adelaide region will be used as a case study to highlight the abatement potential for other similar inner-urban regions.
