In recent years, free-floating car sharing services (FFCS) have been offered by many organizations as a moreflexible option compared to traditional car sharing. FFCS allows users to pick up and return cars anywherewithin a specified area of a city. FFCS can provide a high degree of utilization of vehicles and less usage ofinfrastructure in the form of parking lots and roads and thus has the potential to increase the efficiency of thetransport sector. However, there is also a concern that these compete with other efficient modes of transport suchas biking and public transport. The aim of this paper is to better understand how, when and where the vehiclesare utilized through logged data of the vehicles movements. We have access to data collected on FFCS servicesin 22 cities in Europe and North America which allows us to compare the usage pattern in different cities andexamine whether or not there are similar trends. In this paper, we use the collected data to compare the differentcities based on utilization rate, length of trip and time of day that the trip is made. We find that the vehicleutilization rates differ between cities with Madrid and Hamburg having some of the highest utilization levels forthe FFCS vehicles. The result form a first step of a better understanding on how these services are being usedand can provide valuable input to local policy makers as well as future studies such as simulation models.
Funding for this study is provided from the Swedish Energy Agency, Chalmers Area of Advance Transport andChalmers Area of Advance Energy.