Puncturing automobility? Carsharing practices

Jennifer L. Kent and Robyn Dowling

Journal of Transport Geography, 2013, vol. 32, issue C, 86-92

Abstract: Contemporary scholarship and policy emphasise problems with car use. Though there is a strongly held view that the system of private car use may be impossible to shift, in this paper we consider one mode of car-based mobility – carsharing – through which subtle challenges to the dominant regime are made. Carsharing is an emerging transportation industry in which drivers access a fleet of shared vehicles for short-term use. This paper pursues a conceptual and investigative exploration of the emergence and endurance of carsharing as an alternative mode and offers a number of novel insights into ways the private car system might be challenged. Using a practice based framework of analysis, we focus not on the various structures or agents influential in carsharing’s relative success, but on the way carsharing endures as a routinely performed social practice. It reveals a wide range of mundane footholds for behavioural change, as well as demonstrates the profound complexity implied by any attempt to challenge, and change, deeply entrenched practices of day-to-day mobility.

Keywords: Carsharing; Practices; Automobility; Sustainable transport; Technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692313001683

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:32:y:2013:i:c:p:86-92

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2013.08.014

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transport Geography is currently edited by Frank Witlox

More articles in Journal of Transport Geography from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().