The Future of Mobility report from Avis shows that people in Europe and Asia can be ready for affordable, on-demand car sharing.
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According to 68% of the respondents in a new mobility survey among people in Europe and Asia by Avis Budget Group, car owners will be a minority in ten years.
In the Road Ahead: The Future of Mobility, 32% of respondents said car ownership is still the most common way to use a car in 2030. 34% said, however, that on-demand car sharing or car subscription services are the most common usual approach by then. Many call this Cars-as-a-Service or CaaS. Ride hailing (15%), car leasing (10%) and carpooling (9%) are the other services that can replace ownership of a car.
The Avis Mobility Report is based on a survey of 14,286 people in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and 13 countries in Europe in July and August 2019.
These findings are good news for all kinds of starting mobility, from scooters to on-demand carpools, to subscriptions for mobility as a service: “Customers expect technology to work and be user-friendly and willing to try new things.”
The Avis study also showed that consumers ‘expect cars to be part of a kind of mix and match buffet with transport options that are accessed via apps and that journeys are planned using technology’.
SEE: Smart cities: a guide for business leaders (free PDF)
Survey respondents rated on-demand access as the most important requirement for a car rental or subscription service, with 78% of people considering it the deciding factor.
The following three requirements were:
- Repairs and maintenance taken care of
- Costs comparable to car ownership
- 24/7 customer service
Avis bought ZipCar in 2013 and the car-sharing company hit 1 million members in 2016. Thanks to the subscription service, customers can use a car for an hour or up to 14 days. Customers register online, reserve a car via an app and use a Zipcard to lock and unlock the car.
Christopher Cerruto, vice president of global architecture and analysis at Avis, said the company has three goals for innovation:
- Reinventing the rental experience
- Digitize our company
- Develop new models
Cerruto said that achieving these goals meant the development of the company’s technology platform from mainframes to APIs.
Mike Ramsey, senior research director, automotive and smart mobility at Gartner, said Avis is one of the more advanced mobility companies in the implementation of new technology.
“Overall, the car rental companies are very well positioned to take advantage of different assets and models to use, probably better than anyone in the value stream,” he said.
Ramsey said that companies like Avis understand the challenge of profitability in the company, knowledge that newcomers do not have.
“It requires a pivot on their part, but in general, when I look at the future of those who own and operate assets, car rental companies and organizations with large fleets have a good position,” he said.
Ramsey said a benefit from Avis is a data set with performance information from multiple car brands.
“In some ways, they have the ability to perform data usage in a way that is difficult for a single automaker,” he said.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said they would give up or consider giving up a car if the alternative was simple and easy. Italians entered their car key the most, 25% said they would. And 22% of Singaporeans said they would. Germans and Austrians were the least likely to give up 10% and 9% ownership of a car, respectively.
People mentioned that saving money and better public transport were the two most powerful motivations for choosing an alternative mode of transport.
Respondents were divided on privacy issues: 54% thought it was good that their mobility data was used to improve infrastructure services, while 48% were quite or very uncomfortable with that idea.
In the report, Avis suggests that “inner cities are no longer seen as exceptions to the car ownership rule, but are precursors to a future where private car ownership is no longer the norm.”
Apps that make it easy to plan a journey with different modes of transport – a bus, a scooter and a car ride – are the key to this transition. According to Avis’s mobility report, around 35% of travelers made daily journeys that required two or more modes of transport.
About 60% of respondents said that smart infrastructure was a good idea to make life in the city better. Sixteen percent of the respondents did not believe that this would improve city life.
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A survey of 14,000 people in Europe and Asia showed that people still like their car, but that they might be ready to trade in their ownership for car sharing or a subscription service.
Image: Avis Budget Group
