Effects of off-street parking and car sharing on car use and car ownership in low-parking developments

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2026

Cities increasingly implement strategies to reduce private car use to meet environmental and safety goals. Car sharing is one solution, offering access to cars without ownership. Another strategy is reducing minimum parking requirements, which many cities allow in combination with mobility services like car sharing. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of car sharing availability (and use) and minimum parking requirements on car ownership and car use. Using survey data from 24 multi-family housing areas in Gothenburg and Malm & ouml;, Sweden, this paper analyzes both property and household scale impacts of car sharing and parking on mobility patterns. Across both cities, respondents have lower car ownership than the city average. There is a positive correlation between parking and car ownership at the property level: properties with more parking spaces per apartment had more cars per household. In many cases, parking supply exceeded actual household car ownership, suggesting that minimum parking requirements remain higher than necessary. Properties with more parking had higher overall car use, with residents driving roughly 30% of their total travel time compared to only 10% in low-parking properties. Car sharing use is also correlated with lower rates of car ownership at the property scale. For individual mobility, active car sharing users showed significantly lower car ownership than non-users. Education and distance to work significantly contribute to higher car ownership, while household size, distance to work and distance to the city center contribute to higher rates of car use. Cluster analysis revealed three distinct groups of car users-from low to high use-which showed an inverse relationship between car ownership and car sharing activity. Findings indicate that reducing minimum parking requirements in combination with providing car sharing access is associated with lower car ownership and less driving. The study highlights the importance of integrated parking and mobility policies and points to future research needs, including comparing housing with and without reduced parking and assessing additional mobility services beyond car sharing.