Abstract
Innovations in the transport and mobility sector have emerged over the past decades under the umbrella term of the sharing economy. Ride-sourcing and car-sharing are two examples of such innovations. Ride-sourcing companies, such as Uber and Didi Chuxing, have attracted attention mostly in media even though academic research on ride-sourcing is relatively young and rare, especially considering its social sustainability from the perspective of consumers. Likewise, car-sharing has been developed in the western markets over a longer period that the service in China only started over the past few years. Therefore, there is a research gap on social aspects of car-sharing in the Chinese context. This research aims to evaluate the social impact of these two types of vehicle sharing services in the urban China.
The research was conducted through mixed-methods. The researcher targeted on two cities in China, Beijing and Guangzhou. To explore the services’ impact on social sustainability, a series of qualitative interviews were conducted with key stakeholders, such as service providers, transport planning experts, drivers and passengers of ride-sourcing and users of car-sharing. Additionally, a quantitative approach was used to assess the impact of either service on consumers’ attitude and behaviour towards travelling and towards vehicle ownership. Through logistic regression analysis, the relationship between different mobility styles and their corresponding influence over attitude and behaviour was established. For instance, the research results indicated that the more frequent usage of carpooling mode within ride-sourcing was linked with a positive attitude on the sharing practice and this mode displayed significant influence on forgoing or delaying private vehicle ownership. Whereas frequent use of car- sharing in China did not necessarily lead to any significant vehicle ownership reduction.
To author’s knowledge, this is the first research that explored ride-sourcing and car-sharing in detail in Chinese social sustainability context. With different sharing modes, the results can help policymakers to tailor the design of sustainable mobility strategies for transport sector. For example, efforts should be made on improving the convenience of public transport, especially buses, in order to compete with the increasing use of sharing services. At the same time, the shared use of car-sharing fleets in the form of carpooling should also be promoted to potentially curb the demand for private car ownership. The emphasis on urban spaces in this research can also inspire other regions undergoing urbanisation to build a more sustainable transport and mobility system.