Accommodating Peer-to-Peer Carsharing at Airports: A Guide (2024)
Chapter: 2 What Is Carsharing?
CHAPTER 2
What Is Carsharing?
Carsharing (also commonly referred to as car-sharing and car sharing) is a business or service providing customers the ability to reserve, pick up, and return (i.e., lease) a motor vehicle, available for a fee, using a web-enabled application (or app) provided by the business or service. Carsharing differs from most traditional car rentals in that reservation, pickup, and return are self-service and not limited by office hours. Carsharing customers can lease a vehicle by the hour, the day, or even the minute, if desired, whereas most traditional car rental customers are likely to lease a vehicle by the day. Often, access to a carsharing vehicle requires membership or participation in the organization or business that arranges for (and sometimes owns and maintains) the vehicle fleet. Carsharing customers can either begin and end their trips at the same location (i.e., round-trip carsharing) or begin and end their trips at different locations (i.e., one-way carsharing).
The cost of renting a carsharing vehicle varies greatly depending on the type of vehicle rented, location, and length of rental. Depending on the carsharing company, customers may be charged a variety of fees, including a booking fee (which may be up to 25 percent of the price of the rental), fees for any mileage exceeding the amount included in the base rental, late return fees, tolls, airport parking fees, re-fueling fees, and fees for cleaning the vehicle (e.g., if customer smoked or transported a pet).
Although this report solely addresses P2P carsharing, there are several common forms of carsharing:
- Business-to-consumer (B2C) carsharing, whereby customers are offered access to a fleet of motor vehicles owned by a business. Typically, the carsharing business owns and maintains the vehicle fleet and provides insurance, fuel or electric charging, and parking or storage. Enterprise CarShare, Free2move, Gig Car Share (owned and maintained by AAA), and Zipcar (owned by Avis Budget Group) are examples of B2C carsharing businesses.
- Fractional-ownership carsharing (or co-op carsharing), whereby customers, consisting of individual consumers or households, share vehicle ownership, and access may require membership in an organization (sometimes referred to as a club). The organization owns and maintains the vehicle fleet and provides insurance and vehicle parking or storage. Auto Timeshare, which specializes in leasing supercars and exotic automobiles, is an example of a fractional-ownership model. As of 2023, fractional-ownership carsharing was not available at airports.
- Peer-to-peer (P2P) carsharing, whereby customers are offered access to a fleet of personally owned motor vehicles. Vehicle owners are responsible for maintaining the vehicle while the P2P company offers insurance and provides customer support and other resources to make the vehicle exchange possible and broker transactions (i.e., an online platform and app). Personal vehicle-sharing companies do not own or maintain a fleet of vehicles. Avail (owned by Allstate Insurance), Getaround, and Turo are examples of P2P carsharing businesses.
Of these carsharing services, B2C (e.g., Zipcar) and P2P (e.g., Turo) carsharing are the forms most commonly found at airports. Generally, airport operators treat B2C carsharing in the same manner as traditional rental car businesses (i.e., require the same business agreements, charge the same fees, and locate carsharing vehicles adjacent to traditional rental cars).
The remainder of this report focuses on P2P carsharing at airports. When the research documented in this report was initiated, two major companies offered P2P carsharing at airports—Avail and Turo. After Avail halted its airport operations in January 2023, Turo became the sole major provider of P2P carsharing at U.S. airports. Getaround and Uber Carshare (a carsharing service operated by Uber Technologies) do not market to airport passengers or promote carsharing at airports. Although this report focuses on carsharing at airports, available information concerning other P2P carsharing businesses is referenced in subsequent chapters, as it provides insight into the industry.
