A Quantitative Car Sharing Business Model for Students

Today’s discussion of new mobility concepts mirrors the changing public awareness regarding a rethinking of tomorrow’s mobility. Car sharing has become a very important topic in the last years. Market dynamics has grown significantly due to the car sharing market entry of renowned, global automobile manufacturers. These manufacturers recently have noticed the potential of car sharing to introduce new technologies like e-mobility or mobile systems’ car integration. While car sharing already has many and various customers, the Leibniz Universität Hannover now focuses on developing new ways to interest students in this form of individual and new mobility. The discussed quantitative car sharing model for student customers is developed from a general business model for car sharing in Hannover (Quicar by Volkswagen). Facing student customers the business model has to deal with two basic challenges. On the one hand, different students’ needs of mobility must be addressed and on the other hand students’ willingness to pay must be addressed. The development of a student specific price model includes car sharing rates for driving as well as parking on a minute pay per use basis. In the first step use cases are identified in order to illustrate typical students’ mobility needs. Then these cases provide the basis for a student online survey to analyze the students’ willingness to pay (500 responses). Finally the calculation of student car sharing rates maximizes the car sharing providers’ revenue. An optimization problem under the constraints (a) student car sharing rates must not exceed their willingness to pay and (b) students car sharing rates must not deviate by more than 25 % from the general car sharing rates is solved.