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Electric one-way shared vehicles in Montreal

Martin Trépanier, Polytechnique MontréalBenoît Robert, CommunautoMarco Viviani, Communauto

Summary

• The evolution of the project

• Results and performance

• Implementation and follow-up

Two-way carsharing One-way carsharing

Integration is crucial

ONE WAY

Communauto’s position• Communauto asked to the city

of Montreal (April 2011) to confirm its interest for this kind of service and proposed itself to put in place a system – Strongly integrated with transit,

taxi, carsharing…– Able to benefits to all collectives

transportation modes.• The city of Montreal launched a

consultation (April-July 2013) to know what the opinion of the citizens was

Auto-Mobilethe transit oriented, responsible one-way carsharing service

• Free online subscription in real-time • Access with the personal transit card (OPUS card)• Free floating : on street parking (except paying), no stations required • No reservation, no return station• Electric charging managed by Auto-Mobile

Auto-Mobilethe transit oriented, responsible one-way carsharing service

• Integration with transit, taxi and carsharing

• Between 250 et 350 cars according the configuration

• 80 Km2 area served• Scheduling :

– 1st phase: summer 2013 (23 cars)

– 2nd phase: spring-summer 2014 according to the city of Montreal’s plan

• 0,38 $/min, 12 $/h, 50 $/d

Pilot project• When : mid-June to Winter…

• Where : Plateau-Mont-Royal (100 000 Inh., 8 km2)

• How : 23 EV cars parked anywhere on the street, including resident permits and excluding meters.

• Why : To evaluate the impact on parking, on other transportation modes (taxi and public transportation) and the interest of the population.

• With : the research is supervised by Polytechnique Montreal, with the collaboration of Taxi Diamond.

• The city, the transit company (STM) and the parking agency as external observers

• More information : http://communauto.com/auto-mobile/

17km

Logistic : tech, charge & parking• On board technology, managing

software and mobile app were provided in very short time by VULOG

• Parking : access to on-street parking, including residents permits, exclpaying places and hour of cleaning of street

• Charge made by Communauto : 2 vehicles are charged every morning and 2 every evening and the charged ones replaces the least charged in the fleet

• No actual need to rebalance the fleet

Research and results

• Part of a “continuous” research project Communauto/Polytechnique

• Analysis from three sources– data on lending periods :

date, time, vehicle, distance, duration, home location of users

• 3466 reservations over 13 weeks

– short survey addressed to the members after every use of the system: no. of trips, trip purpose, what mode is replaced, satisfaction

– GPS traces but not now!

Distance travelled during use

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

0 to 1 km

2 to 3 km

4 to 5 km

7.5 to 10 km

15 to 20 km

30 to 50 km

100 km and more

% of reservations

Duration of lending period

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

0 to 5 min.5 to 10 min.

10 to 15 min.15 to 20 min.20 to 30 min.30 to 45 min.45 min. to 1h

1h to 2h2h to 3h3h to 6h

6h to 12h12h and more

% of reservations

« Learning curve » over weeks

0123456789

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Week number

Average distance per res.

01020304050607080

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Week number

Average duration per res.

Distribution of duration over weekdays

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

0 to 5 min. 5 to 10 min.

10 to 15 min.

15 to 20 min.

20 to 30 min.

30 to 45 min.

45 min. to 1h

1h to 2h 2h to 3h 3h to 6h 6h to 12h 12h and more

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Home location of users

Longueuil

Laval

Montreal CBD

Auto-Mobilezone

What was the purpose of your trip with Auto-mobile?

Survey results

When using the Auto-mobile vehicle, how many activities did you do (number of times you parked the car)?

If Auto-mobile hadn’t existed, what transportation mode would you have used for this trip?

Public transportation

28%

A regular communauto

vehicle19%

Taxi11%

I wouldn't have taken the trip

11%

Walk10%

Someone would have

accompanied me 4%

My car or moto4%

My bike5% Bixi

8%

How many cars/motorcycles (owned or long terme lease) do you have at home?

Some numbersJune July August

Hours / car / day 0.69 1.48 1.97

Usage / car 16 (half month) 52 45

Km / car 174 (half month) 372 467

Trip 0 km 36% 22% 27%

# Usage per user 2.9 3.6 4.4

June July August

Revenues / car

20122013

Research perspectives for one-way carsharing

• Cross-analyze the survey responses with the trip logs– to understand the use of the service in relation with trip

purpose, mode replacement• Analyze GPS traces

– to characterize each individual trip within the whole reservation (origin and destination, extent of the trip, speed, etc.)

• Measure the place of OWCS in urban mobility, assess its impacts– Attributes of household, other trips made by HH– GHG assessment (? electric!)

Conclusion and follow-up• The service in this configuration seems much easier to

manage than expected (redistribution of the fleet, charging, etc.)

• The usage appears to complete the offer of carsharing for « short and spontaneous » trips not necessarily one way

• Usage and revenues are increasing faster than expected• Possible bias due to the limited zone and the fact of

addressing in priority Communauto’s members (weather?)• Much more research and analysis has to be done to

understand the interactions with other modes

• The project will be extended in the Winter in order to test operation in this season

THANKS

martin.trepanier@polymtl.camviviani@communauto.mobi

Other research projects on carsharing• Previous

– supply and demand interactions: showed no saturation sign of CS service in Montreal

– GHG assessment: showed that CS helps reduce GHG emissions in urban context

– travel behavior of HH: showed that CS members behave differently than regular car owners, drive less

• Actual– GPS traces analysis– Impacts of CS on HH car ownership

GPS traces analysis• What happens during a

reservation? How many trips? Where?

Type Trip distance (km)

Activity duration (min.)

Trip chain length(km)

Trip chain’sactivity duration

(min.)

Trips / trip chain

Urban 4.75 54.63 21.26 244.02 4.48Interurban 36.54 69.74 139.58 333.38 3.82With home location 7.40 49.07 41.29 283.21 5.58Without home location 8.17 56.84 35.31 245.91 4.32Urban only, with home location 3.93 49.17 21.91 272.46 5.57

Urban only, without home location 4.82 55.17 20.90 234.01 4.33

Global 8.11 56.22 36.91 255.91 4.55

Average

1st trip11:46 to 11:53

2nd trip11:59 to 12:24

3rd trip13:52 to 14:13

4th trip15:39 to 16:00

GPS event

GPS timepoint

5th trip16:22 to 16:26

A

B

C

D

E

Impacts of CS on HH car ownership

• A model of car ownership based on 1998, 2003 and 2008 shows that CS has a slight but real impact on the decrease of car ownership in central Montreal