bcs: Carsharing in municipalities significantly improved

The carsharing provision in cities and municipalities has significantly improved, and per capita, there are more carsharing vehicles available in most cities and municipalities in Germany today than two years ago. This is shown by the current city ranking of the German Carsharing Association. The leader in the ranking is the city of Karlsruhe. Every two years, the German Carsharing Association e.V. (bcs) determines the carsharing provision in Germany's cities and municipalities. According to the latest evaluation, the carsharing provision in large cities has improved by an average of 29 percent over the past two years. In cities and municipalities with 50,000 to 99,999 inhabitants, the improvement was an average of 20 percent.

“The improved carsharing provision is good news for municipalities, as carsharing reduces the need for parking space and enables sustainable and climate-friendly mobility behavior. Carsharing households need significantly fewer cars for their mobility than car-owning households and use buses, trains, and bicycles much more frequently," explains Gunnar Nehrke, managing director of the German Carsharing Association.

Per 1,000 inhabitants, there are currently 5.35 carsharing vehicles in Karlsruhe. This puts Karlsruhe at a wide lead in first place in a ranking with 155 places. Munich and Hamburg take second and third place with 3.37 and 3.04 carsharing vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, respectively. In Karlsruhe, the carsharing offering is almost entirely provided by the provider stadtmobil. The majority of the offering is station-based carsharing, with a smaller portion provided as free-floating carsharing. In Munich and Hamburg, however, the majority of the carsharing offering is free-floating carsharing, with only a small portion provided as station-based carsharing. The largest provider of free-floating carsharing in both metropolises is Miles, while the largest station-based offering comes from Stattauto Munich in Munich and cambio Carsharing in Hamburg.

Good Carsharing Availability Is Not a Question of City Size

Good carsharing availability does not depend on the size of the city. In the TOP 20 of the city ranking, there are seven cities with fewer than 250,000 inhabitants: Freiburg (6th place), Tübingen (9th place), Heidelberg (10th place), Marburg (14th place), Darmstadt (16th place), Potsdam (17th place), and Jena (19th place). In these cities, station-based providers account for the majority of the offerings, sometimes smaller free-floating fleets are added as part of a combined system. Potsdam is an exception. Here a free-floating provider from Berlin has expanded its business area, thereby significantly increasing the number of vehicles available in Potsdam.