Car sharing in the Ruhr area: Where is the connection to the big cities?

Car sharing in the Ruhr area: Where is the connection to the big cities?

The car sharing offer in the Ruhr area is significantly inadequate compared to other regions of Germany. Despite a growing demand for car sharing services, which is motivated primarily due to the high costs for possession and maintenance of its own vehicles, a current evaluation of the Federal Association of Carsharing (BCS) shows that the Ruhr area lags behind here. The situation in Dortmund is particularly critical, where only 36 car sharing vehicles are available. In comparison, Essen has the largest car sharing offer in the Ruhr area with 220 cars.

Such differences in the car sharing offer between cities can be attributed to several factors. For example, long established providers and corresponding urban funding through public parking space reports have made a significant contribution to the expansion of car sharing in cities such as Essen. In contrast, there is the rather weak infrastructure in cities such as Mülheim and Oberhausen, where there are hardly any Carsharing services. After car sharing continuously increases.

trends and developments in car sharing

While the cities in the Ruhr area are fighting with a very limited car sharing offer, other big cities in Germany show completely different developments. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf and Cologne in particular are among the top 20 German cities in terms of car sharing. There, the car sharing vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants are significantly higher than in the Ruhr area: Cologne leads with 1,472 cars with 2,325 cars and Düsseldorf, while Dortmund only records 0.06 cars per 1,000 inhabitants. T-Online emphasizes that providers such as Greenwheels in particular have left the market in the Ruhr area, which caused a gap to be created, which was created, the provider like Cambio and city mobile can only close slowly.

In addition, statistics show that the car sharing segment in Germany is experiencing strong growth as a whole. As of the cut-off date, the number of registered drivers in pure free floating car sharing has increased by 26.4 percent, which promotes the overall growth of the industry. Providers now provide over 26,350 vehicles in the free floating segment. In metropolises such as Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, car sharing services are often represented with several thousand vehicles. Carsharing Germany reports that the growing number of users also heats up for flexible uses.

outlook and challenges

The continued demand for car sharing could be an opportunity for the Ruhr area. In particular, the combination of inpatient and free floating car sharing could increase the attractiveness of the offer. However, it remains to be seen whether the cities are willing to provide the necessary resources in order to improve the infrastructure.

The need for better car sharing care is becoming increasingly clearer and the challenges in the Ruhr area are considerable. In the future, however, a rethinking in urban planning and a strategic approach to promoting car sharing could help improve the situation and to fully exploit the potential of this mobility concept.