Carsharing in Italy: Milan’s experiences between traditional and innovative proposals

Carsharing (hereafter CS) in Italy is getting importance as an alternative transport mode, that could contribute to a more sustainable urban mobility. Since 2000, thanks to Iniziativa Carsharing (ICS), the national coordination structure created to promote CS initiatives, many initiatives have been activated in several cities. The paper, after recalling the main characteristics of this service starting from the analysis of the literature on this topic, in the second part discusses the current situation of Milan’s CS followed by the presentation of a brand new project of CS, called Green Move, promoted by Politecnico di Milano and funded by Lombardia Region. Green Move entails both the electric and peer to peer (hereafter P2P) dimensions in a CS project. In order to test the new service and to have a preliminary estimation of its attractiveness, a stated preference survey among Milan’s citizens has been carried out. The very first results of this survey, concerning in particular the P2P dimension together with some policy considerations, are provided in the final part of the paper. To our knowledge, this represents the first attempt to estimate the potentiality of a P2P carsharing scheme through a specific market analysis.