At a recent seminar on carpooling arranged by the Swedish think tank Fores Steven Sarasini presented new findings from a study in Shift.

Steven Sarasini and co-author Ove Langeland has identified two principal types of business models linked to car and ride sharing: integrators and orchestrators. Integrators are typically commercial organisations that own a vehicle fleet and sell access to users on a monthly basis. This allows for a greater utilisation of vehicles between users, as one shared vehicle can replace 5-6 privately owned vehicles.

Orchestrators, by contrast, facilitate peer-to-peer car and ride sharing and combined mobility services, and do not own any vehicles themselves. These two business models each have a role to play in the deployment of new vehicle technology and in scaling business models to new geographical areas.

– In political debates and discussions, one must not forget the potential role of peer-to-peer services and non-commercial arrangements. At present, the debate seems skewed towards integrators and the removal of barriers to deployment. By contrast, P2P orchestrators do not gain the same recognition and appear to be forgotten in the debate, says Steven Sarasini.

– The first step is to define the legal status of a car pool, or else they will not get any benefits. A car pool should have the same VAT as taxis and limousines, not four times higher. Municipalities should also be granted the possibility to reserve parking spaces for car pools. And lastly, I want to challenge everyone to taste the freedom of having access to a car without owning it and spending money and insurance on it – give the car pool a chance, says Mattias Goldmann, CEO, Fores.

Fores also released a report on carpooling http://mediafores.sandbox.15kstudios.com/2017/05/BILPOOLSBOOM_Online.pdf), handed to Karin Svensson Smith, chair woman of Swedish Traffic Committee.