Practice and public–private partnerships in sustainable transport governance: The case of car sharing in Sydney, Australia

Over the past two decades car sharing has become a mainstream transportation mode for over a million users worldwide with organisations now operating in more than 1100 cities across 26 countries and on five continents. Car sharing has developed alongside significant intellectual currents exploring t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Transport policy 2015-05, Vol.40, p.58-64
Main Authors: Dowling, Robyn, Kent, Jennifer
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Australia
Car sharing
Government and politics
Intellectuals
Motor vehicles
Parking policy
Partnership
Practice theory
Privatization
Public-private partnership
Public-private sector cooperation
Transport governance
Transportation
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Summary:Over the past two decades car sharing has become a mainstream transportation mode for over a million users worldwide with organisations now operating in more than 1100 cities across 26 countries and on five continents. Car sharing has developed alongside significant intellectual currents exploring the attributes and effectiveness of the diverse strands of transport policy. These debates include the efficacy of behaviour change programmes to shift transport practice, the imprints of neoliberalism on transport policy, and the withdrawal of the state as active agent in shaping policy privatisation. Despite its emergence amid these debates, car sharing has largely escaped their due consideration. This paper brings car sharing and transport policy scholarship into explicit conversation. It suggests that thinking car sharing through the broader lens of transport policy can produce a richer understanding of why car sharing works, and demonstrates that the case of car sharing sheds unique light onto key contemporary debates in transport policy. We present empirical data from an in depth content analysis of car sharing policy in Sydney, Australia. This data is used to explore the ways transport policy can, and does, facilitate successful car sharing. We draw upon two key theoretical frameworks to explain this success–practice theory and public–private partnerships. We conclude with a discussion of the way this unique analysis contributes to ongoing debates about the broader contours of transport governance. •Car sharing is a growing transport mode.•An analysis of transport policy can produce a richer understanding of why car sharing works.•Such analysis will benefit from a focus on practices and dualisms of public and private.
ISSN:0967-070X
1879-310X
DOI:10.1016/j.tranpol.2015.02.007