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Car-Sharing Symposium in The Hague – The Green Deal and other Outputs and Impressions

Car-Sharing Symposium in The Hague – The Green Deal and other Outputs and Impressions

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On September 27, SHARE-North partners Advier, Autodelen.net and Taxistop together with ShareNL organised the first inspiring Benelux Symposium Car sharing in The Hague (Netherlands), This year’s theme was “Driving Change”. Interesting speakers, plenary sessions, interactive in-depth sessions and several networking opportunities and the signing of the Green Deal provided a richly filled and dynamic program. The main goal: to determine the 5 key-actions to boost car sharing to the next level.

By Jeffrey Matthijs, Autodelen.net

The State of Car-Sharing

After a warm welcome in the beautiful Caballero-building, mobility expert Ananda Groag (ShareNL) and Karla Münzel (Utrecht University) opened the debates. They illustrated, amongst other things, the progress of car-sharing in the host country, the Netherlands. Last year, the amount of shared cars in the Netherlands climbed by 55%, leading to more than 25.000 shared cars and at least one shared car in almost every Dutch city and village (research by Advier)! Michael Glotz-Richter (City of Bremen), told about the good practices Bremen and together with P2P-providers, MyWheels and SnappCar, he proved the still high potential of car-sharing and the need of shared mobility action plans in European cities.

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Car-Sharing Award and Green Deal

And the 2016 Award goes to…? The symposium was an excellent opportunity to give this yearly Dutch prize. 30 towns joined the contest. The host city of The Hague made it to the final (together with Cities of Nijmegen and Wageningen). Because of their integrated car sharing policy, the many innovative initiatives and the increasing amount of shared cars in the town, The Hague won the Car-Sharing Award. Congratulations! It’s a good idea to launch this contest in the other North Sea Region countries. SHARE-North partners Autodelen.net and Taxistop will take the gauntlet and will be organising an award in 2017 on shared mobility in Flanders.

The morning was closed by the signing of the Green Deal – Carsharing. This is a contract between the Dutch government and a variety of companies and organisations with the goal of reaching 100.000 shared cars by 2018. Very exceptional was that Autodelen.net signed the Green Deal too as the first non-Dutch organisation. This shows one of the many interesting outcomes of the SHARE-North project. By signing the Green Deal, there is an additional structure for the sharing of knowledge concerning shared mobility across national borders. Since Advier was already involved in the Green Deal and also signed during the conference, the mutual ties between both Benelux countries have been strengthened. The 2017 annual car-sharing symposium will be held in Belgium and the concept Green Deal will be extended in Flanders to shared mobility in general.

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Let’s drive change!

In the afternoon of the Car-Sharing Symposium on September 27th, the participants tried to determine the 5 key actions for boosting car-sharing to the next level. During three rounds of workshops, strictly timed and professionally lead, visitors could choose between a wide range of in-depth sessions: private lease, car-sharing outside the city, experiences with different kinds of car-sharing organisations, key challenges and success factors, and more.

And here they are, the 5 key actions to the road of success for car-sharing:

  • Communication: The big challenges in convincing people to use a shared car surround the concept of car-sharing. It must be better communicated that car-sharing is cheaper and easier then owning a private car. Therefore, we need permanent, repeating local and European communication campaigns.
  • Flexibility and diversity: We have to make sure car-sharing is available for everybody. In order to achieve this, we need more and smart concepts for car-sharing. Moreover, we need tailor-made concepts so different target groups can be reached such as elderly, persons with disabilities, companies, etc.
  • Integration: Car-sharing can’t achieve the transition to sustainable mobility patterns on its own. In order to convince people to not own a private car there is an urgent need for smart, integrated mobility solutions. The backbone is an excellent public transport with flexible and easy first- and last-mile solutions such as car-sharing and bike-sharing.
  • Plan the automatisation: The self-driving car has a big opportunity to make a disruptive change in mobility. But policy makers will have to make sure it will be shared in order to make cities more livable and less car dependent rather than more congested.
  • Share mobility action plans: The local governments, besides the car-sharing operators, are the key players for boosting shared mobility. They have knowledge, resources and power to plan ahead. Moreover, by taking the right measures, cities are being able to boost shared mobility with highest impacts on space consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and social cohesion. Cities like Bremen, Ghent, Leuven, Utrecht and Heerhugowaard already have a Car Sharing Action Plan. More cities have to follow this example in order to get car-sharing to the next dimension.

    • The day ended in beauty with a moment of networking, together with a drink and snack. You could even make a test ride with a self-driving Tesla! The Belgian delegation went home with a lot of inspiration and, completely in the spirit of the SHARe-North project, with a free shared bus (offered by the Dutch embassy). See you next year in Belgium!

    Pictures and presentations can be found here (mostly in Dutch).

    11 Oct 2016