IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gla/glaewp/2024_07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who should not share? The merits of withholding unused vehicles

Author

Listed:
  • Roman Zakharenko

Abstract

People repeatedly demand travel, using available vehicles scattered around space. What can justify vehicle withholding (i.e. preventing others from using it, for own future use) from the social welfare perspective? This paper investigates heterogeneity in the potential cost of search for alternative vehicles as such justification. It is shown that travellers whose search cost is substantially higher than that of others (e.g. limited-mobility people) can optimally withhold a vehicle. The heterogeneity of search costs should be sufficiently strong, e.g. a uniform distribution is not variable enough to justify withholding by anyone. In an example calibrated for car use in London, it is shown that at most 39% of car users should withhold their vehicles under the most extreme modelling assumptions, while all others should share.

Suggested Citation

  • Roman Zakharenko, 2024. "Who should not share? The merits of withholding unused vehicles," Working Papers 2024_07, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    • Handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2024_07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_1074207_smxx.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Buchholz, 2022. "Spatial Equilibrium, Search Frictions, and Dynamic Efficiency in the Taxi Industry," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(2), pages 556-591.
    2. Zakharenko, Roman, 2023. "Pricing shared vehicles," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    3. Zakharenko, Roman, 2016. "The time dimension of parking economics," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 211-228.
    4. Shaheen, Susan & Sperling, Daniel & Wagner, Conrad, 2001. "Carsharing in Europe and North American: Past, Present, and Future," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt14d994bn, University of California Transportation Center.
    5. Eliasson, Jonas & Börjesson, Maria, 2022. "Costs and benefits of parking charges in residential areas," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 95-109.
    6. Giulia Brancaccio & Myrto Kalouptsidi & Theodore Papageorgiou & Nicola Rosaia, 2023. "Search Frictions and Efficiency in Decentralized Transport Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(4), pages 2451-2503.
    7. Jochem, Patrick & Frankenhauser, Dominik & Ewald, Lukas & Ensslen, Axel & Fromm, Hansjörg, 2020. "Does free-floating carsharing reduce private vehicle ownership? The case of SHARE NOW in European cities," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 373-395.
    8. Zakharenko, Roman, 2023. "Pushing towards shared mobility," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    9. van Ommeren, Jos & McIvor, Michael & Mulalic, Ismir & Inci, Eren, 2021. "A novel methodology to estimate cruising for parking and related external costs," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 247-269.
    10. Guillaume R. Fréchette & Alessandro Lizzeri & Tobias Salz, 2019. "Frictions in a Competitive, Regulated Market: Evidence from Taxis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2954-2992, August.
    11. Shaheen, Susan & Sperling, Daniel & Wagner, Conrad, 2001. "Carsharing in Europe and North American: Past, Present, and Future," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt14d994bn, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zakharenko, Roman, 2023. "Pushing towards shared mobility," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    2. Hayato Kanayama & Suguru Otani, 2024. "Nonparametric Estimation of Matching Efficiency and Elasticity in a Spot Gig Work Platform: 2019-2023," Papers 2412.19024, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2025.
    3. Boffa, Federico & Fedele, Alessandro & Iozzi, Alberto, 2023. "Congestion and incentives in the age of driverless fleets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Abdelghaffar, Hossam M. & Batista, S.F.A. & Rehman, Abdur & Cao, Jin & Menéndez, Mónica & Jabari, Saif Eddin, 2024. "Comparison of probabilistic cruising-for-parking time estimation models," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Ron Yang, 2022. "(Don’t) Take Me Home: Home Preference and the Effect of Self-Driving Trucks on Interstate Trade," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Artificial Intelligence, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Junhee Kang & Keeyeon Hwang & Sungjin Park, 2016. "Finding Factors that Influence Carsharing Usage: Case Study in Seoul," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-12, July.
    7. Li, Xinwei & Ke, Jintao & Yang, Hai & Wang, Hai & Zhou, Yaqian, 2024. "An aggregate matching and pick-up model for mobility-on-demand services," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    8. Patrizia Grifoni & Alessia D'Andrea & Fernando Ferri & Tiziana Guzzo & Maurizio Angeli Felicioni & Caterina Praticò & Andrea Vignoli, 2018. "Sharing Economy: Business Models and Regulatory Landscape in the Mediterranean Areas," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(5), pages 62-79, May.
    9. Zhang, Kenan & Alonso-Mora, Javier & Fielbaum, Andres, 2025. "What do walking and e-hailing bring to scale economies in on-demand mobility?," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    10. Yoshifumi Konishi & Akari Ono, 2024. "Is Ride-sharing Good for Environment?," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2024-014, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    11. Lehe, Lewis & Pandey, Ayush, 2022. "Taxi service with heterogeneous drivers and a competitive medallion market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    12. Jessica Fong, 2024. "Effects of Market Size and Competition in Two-Sided Markets: Evidence from Online Dating," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(5), pages 971-985, September.
    13. Gragera, Albert & Hybel, Jesper & Madsen, Edith & Mulalic, Ismir, 2021. "A model for estimation of the demand for on-street parking," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    14. Eliasson, Jonas & Börjesson, Maria, 2022. "Costs and benefits of parking charges in residential areas," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 95-109.
    15. Yang,Ron Nan, 2024. "Geographic Imbalance, Search Frictions, and Regulation : Causes of Empty Miles in Freight Trucking," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10775, The World Bank.
    16. Zakharenko, Roman, 2024. "Getting automated mobility on its own track: An economist’s perspective," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    17. Saki, Siavash & Hagen, Tobias, 2024. "What drives drivers to start cruising for parking? Modeling the start of the search process," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    18. Martin B. Hackmann & Jörg Heining & Roman Klimke & Maria Polyakova & Holger Seibert, 2025. "Health Insurance as Economic Stimulus? Evidence from Long-Term Care Jobs," NBER Working Papers 33429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Yanwen Wang & Chunhua Wu & Ting Zhu, 2019. "Mobile Hailing Technology and Taxi Driving Behaviors," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(5), pages 734-755, September.
    20. Foellmi, Reto & Hepenstrick, Christian & Torun, David, 2024. "Triangle inequalities in international trade: The neglected dimension," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vehicle sharing; Transportation demand; Spatial search frictions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R40 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2024_07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Business School Research Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpglauk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.