In need of access to a car? There are many other ways than having to buy one especially if you live in an urban environment.
The traditional way is to buy or lease a car. It is promoted to give you freedom of mobility. However you can argue that car ownership actually limits your freedom to make the best choice of mobility depending on your needs.
No matter where you are going the mobility device is the car. Using any other options is seen as an extra cost on top of the cost of ownership of the car. Hence most of cars drive around as single person mobility devices even if more sustainable alternatives such as train, bus, cycling and even walking a bit more could cater for the mobility needs.
As seen in the figure car ownership includes many cost items and duties that you need to spend time and money to manage.
Leasing a car moves some of the risc factors of car ownership related to depreciation and resale value etc. to a service provider.
If you can manage your commute by public transport, ride share, bicycle or/and walking, you can avoid car ownership and rely on car as service in form of a combination of car share, car rental and city car schemes plus available taxi/ride share options. Instead of being a fleet manager for your own car you can let the service provider take care of keeping the car in shape for you to take a ride when needed.
Now you have complete freedom of mobility based on your needs and as a bonus a lot of extra time otherwise used to maintain and repair the car if you owned one. How much do you look forward to drive your car to the garage for maintenance repair and shift of tyres from summer to winter and vice versa?
The car is often seen as a status symbol. For many it matters what brand and size of car they own. Car owners sometime cannot believe that you can survive without car ownership. Is it because the car industry has managed to create an emotional bond to car ownership?
How do we make it trendy to live without car ownership and make more sustainable mobility choices? Who has the money to get the message across in the daily flow of commercials for buying your next dream car now?
Let me know if you have ideas to how we can nudge many more people away from the need to buy a new car – especially as long as it runs on diesel or gasoline.
Would you be willing to give up car ownership if it could save you time and money?
More on how to rely on mobility as a service
For independent advice and consulting on what it takes to live without car ownership, what regulators can do to support car share schemes and how it can be easier to opt in for shared mobility using MaaS and other digital planning and navigation tools feel free to contact me anytime on sos@sfmcon.com
Also consider a one day MaaSterclass on the complete range of shared mobility options available in Copenhagen.
Using the wide range of public and private shared mobility services available in Copenhagen, Denmark, get insight in what it takes to create and facilitate a shared mobility ecosystem.
What are the roles of the regulators, the mobility actors and the emerging elements of MaaS agents to make it a seamless experience to plan, buy and navigate from door to door in the shared mobility grid in Copenhagen?
How does it feel when you are a user of the services? Seamless or difficult? What kind of MaaS services could make it easier to opt in for shared mobility? Will MaaS make a difference?
Did you know that 70% of households in the municipality of Copenhagen live without car ownership. They are relying on shared mobility services plus their own bicycles. (there are 4.3 times as many bicycles than cars owned by the citizens of Copenhagen)
Send a mail to sos@sfmcon.com for more details on a MaaSterclass on shared mobility in Copenhagen.