The effects of car sharing on car ownership: a pseudo-panel approach

Abstract

Car sharing is frequently promoted as a means to reduce private car ownership, yet empirical evidence on its actual effects remains mixed. This study examines the relationship between car sharing and household car ownership using a pseudo-panel approach based on four waves (2022–2025) of the Dutch Landelijk Reizigersonderzoek (LRO). A first-order Markov transition model is estimated to capture both baseline car ownership and changes over time, while accounting for state dependence and observed heterogeneity. The results indicate that car sharing adoption is associated with lower baseline levels of car ownership. At the same time, adopters exhibit substantially higher transition rates in car ownership compared to non-adopters. Importantly, the direction of these transitions depends on initial car ownership. Among multi-car households, car sharing is associated with a higher likelihood of reducing the number of cars, whereas among car-free and single-car households it is associated with an increased likelihood of acquiring cars. Distinguishing between Business-toConsumer (B2C) and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) car sharing reveals heterogeneous effects, with B2C car sharing showing stronger associations with both upward and downward transitions. These findings suggest that car sharing does not uniformly substitute for private car ownership, but rather contributes to increased volatility in car ownership trajectories.

Key-words: car sharing, car ownership, pseudo panel, Markov model