Car Sharing In China Case Study

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Car sharing in China • Reasons for the growth of the sector • Major players and three main types of operators Car-sharing is basically defined as a short-time need-based car rental service (typically charged by the hour). Hence, depending on an individual’s car rental requirement, a smartphone app is needed to find and unlock a car. Thereafter, a vehicle can be ridden which can be parked anywhere or in designated parking lots. China continues to be the largest car market in the world ever since it overtook the U.S. in 2009. In tandem with the explosive sales growth in the auto sector, the country’s local car plates grew by c.150% between 2004 to 2015. Moreover, increase in the number of vehicles resulted in high levels of toxic smog and clogging of roads (roads grew by just 58%) in the same period. While the factors that contributed to increasing the air pollution ranged a broad spectrum from car to factory exhaust. Thereby, several initiatives were taken both at the regional as well as the national level to improve the air quality and reduce the harmful effects of these on the inhabitants. One of the significant measures was to control the number of cars plying on roads. Hence, China introduced an annual public lottery system for issuance of number plate licenses. While this tackled the …show more content…

In addition, urbanization grew at a faster pace than the development of public transportation. For example, while the population of Beijing grew 1.4% per year (2004-14), the number of taxis increased by a mere 0.3% per year in the same period and totalled 67,500 against the population of 13,334,000. In order to overcome these constraints, new business models such as bike sharing and the present car sharing emerged as potential solutions for commuting. It is believed that car sharing could significantly cut down the purchase of 13 cars according to the study by China’s State Information Center,

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