What is Car Sharing and How does it work?

What is Car sharing?

Car sharing is a growing field within the car rental industry, not just in the US, but also in places like in Denmark and several other countries. So, what is “Car sharing”?

The concept of car sharing comes from the “sharing economy”, in which certain parts of the private sector are becoming more and easily accessible through sharing between private parties and with the help of a developing platform.

An example of such a platform is Airbnb, which let private homes be lent out and shared with people in need of accommodation as an alternative to hotels.

This same method and concept are now growing within the car rental industry, where Uber, Lyft, and GoMore here in Denmark, are all platforms, in which public transportation has become sharable or also known as the “shared mobility economy."

Definition of Car sharing:

Car sharing is primarily designed for a shorter time and shorter distance trips as an extension of the transportation network, providing a public service designed to enhance mobility options.

This is attractive to customers who make only occasional use of a vehicle, as well as others who would like occasional access to a vehicle of a different type than they use day-to-day.

The organization renting the cars may be a commercial business or the users may be organized as a company, public agency, cooperative, or ad hoc grouping.

Car sharing is part of a larger trend of shared mobility. Shared mobility includes all modes of travel that offer short-term access to transportation on an on-needed basis either for personal transportation or goods delivery.

Car sharing in Denmark

In Denmark, GoMore allows you to catch a ride with a driver or owner of a car. For example, an average-sized 5-seater family car can have space for 4 other passengers besides the driver.

Thus, allowing the driver or owner of the car to earn money (or splitting the transportation costs) while going to a destination they were already planning on going by picking up people headed that way as well.

These people headed to the same place as you and roughly around the same time and also paying for their “share” of the ride would be a fraction of what it would cost for a bus, train, or plane ticket.

This sharing economy is opening up and allowing new opportunities in regards to sharing your vehicle for a short amount of time and even sometimes by the hour.

GoMore gives you multiple options within the shared economy, you can either loan out your vehicle for small periods, catch a ride with someone with the same destination as you, or lease a car through GoMore with one of their fleet vehicles and then when you are not using it, loan it out to other GoMore customers.

car sharing benefits individuals who can gain the benefits of private cars without having costs and responsibilities associated with car ownership. Instead, a household accesses a fleet of vehicles on an as-needed basis. car sharing may be thought of as organized short-term car rental.

How does car sharing work with AutoPi?

The AutoPi IoT Platform can reduce some of the concerns and obstacles with short-term car sharing, through its many features.

In today’s car sharing industry, if a private person wants to use one of the many platforms to lease out their car or share it, the AutoPi TMU device is useful in how it is utilized to keep a continuous status update and diagnostic running on the vehicle.

Curfew times

A curfew is a way of limiting the use of the vehicle, based on time. You could limit the use of the car to daytime only. An example could be a Curfew between 11 PM and 7 AM. Speak text in the car if curfew is in less than 30 minutes

Any combination of all of the above could be made using the built-in if-this-then-that system. And the rules could be combined with a lot of other systems as well. You configure your system and set up the rules you want to enforce and who you want to enforce them on.

AutoPi TMU dataflow

The image below gives an overview of how the flow of information is between all systems and how they work together:

The user is identified upon entering the car, this could be done through Bluetooth or with an external NFC reader. The AutoPi device connects to the car and ensures communication with the car.

User-based rules are downloaded to the AutoPi device from the AutoPi cloud dashboard. Warnings to the owner of the car are sent from the Cloud. Warnings to the driver of the car are sent through the built-in speaker.

This is but one of the few ways that the AutoPi device complements the shared mobility industry and how it works within the field. Another way that the AutoPi devices complement the shared mobility industry is in how one can manage a fleet of car sharing vehicles on a corporate level.

This is done in a similar fashion and on the same premise as commercial car sharing, but the business will have vehicle fleets readily available in parking lots or warehouses spread around a city, for people who rent them out.

Furthermore, the AutoPi device also monitors the car health of the fleet and can continuously run diagnostics so the business can stay up to date on the status of each vehicle if any errors or problems should arise the AutoPi can flag them and thus they can be solved as soon as they are discovered.

We hope this has given you an idea of what the AutoPi is capable of regarding car sharing and leasing out your vehicle in short-term sharing.

If you're interested in knowing more, don't hesitate to contact us.