Car sharing is in many ways the new breed. For some companies it's good business, but for the climate the gain is not that great.
Driving in shared cars is not a gift to the climate, even if it seems like a better idea to share each car between several people.
A Dutch study now shows that car sharing is not as green as many people think and believe about the concept.
This is what Autovisie writes.
Previous studies have concluded that car sharing could reduce the environmental impact of the passenger car part of the transport sector by up to 51 percent.
That is, when compared to passenger cars that are only used by one owner or family. But now a Dutch study casts doubt on the gain.
In fact, the Dutch call previous studies exaggerated due to what is also known as the 'rebound effect'.
According to Levon Amatuni, a researcher at Leiden University, companies and his research colleagues rarely take the 'rebound effect' into account.
In this case, this means that shared cars are replaced with new models more often than private cars, and that sharing schemes encourage people to drive, even though they could have actually made the trip on foot, by bike, on a bus or on a train.
