Casebook Organization

These materials were taken from cooperating sites and programs on the Web and hammered togther in rough and ready form as a casebook for transportation and urban planners, policy makers, local government and activists. They are intended not as a pure research product but rather have been assembled for practical support and reference purposes for those who are interested to get a better feel for both the way in which developments are gathering steam in this interesting and relatively new field of transportation innovation. And, even more to the point, to those individuals and groups that are interested to look into the prospects for setting up a car sharing organization in their own community.

Perhaps a brief word will be useful in this respect. As you will see from the companion thinkpiece, the authors are convinced that car sharing constitutes a "new" transportation option that is now, at long last once might say, and for a variety of reasons, well positioned to begin to make a contribution to the move toward a more sustainable transportation system. This is, in our view, a most important objective and thus it is timely if we can contribute to it in some small way through this casebook.

This is, or course, not original work, it is rather a task of rather painstaking compilation and sorting. In this way we hope to make a modest contribution to the development of new projects and support programs, perhaps at first for the most part in Europe -- for a variety of reasons that will be made clear in the full report -- but which in due course one might hope will find their way to many cities and communities elsewhere in the world. Fortunately we are not the only ones involved in this process, as you will see as you move ahead in the pages that follow.

Readers in a hurry may well complain about the length and diversity of all these materials. Understand however that we have made a major effort in fact to be succinct. In our several months of work to develop these materials and the interpretive overview report we have looked at and accumulated many thousands of pages of documents and materials which are, each in its own way, a part of the picture. We have carefully winnowed these down into what follows for the purposes set out here.

If you take the time to work your way through these pieces, perhaps in the order shown since we have given some thought to it, you should be able to develop quite a sophisticated understanding of what has been accomplished in this general area up to now. Likewise, the materials should help the reader to develop some rather interesting perspectives and thoughts of her own as to future developments and prospects. This last is perhaps even more true than in the case of the usual one-source or homogenized reports, since you will be faced in these pages with some rather different points of view and interpretations. This in our view is a considerable advantage.

You will note that in each case we have made an effort to give not only the source for the information, but also all that you will need to link easily into the respective Web sites where they exist, and also, as available, the email addresses of the authors and other key concerned individuals or groups. Thus if you need/want more on any of this, you should be able to develop and even better appreciation of where things currently stand, and where they might be made to go.

Several of these pieces will in due course possibly appear in the forthcoming version of the International Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice which, in part because of this project, is to be given over to a special report on car sharing. The special edition is to appear in 1999. Between now and the time that the journal is published, we intend to maintain and extend this information regularly on thissite. If you have additional materials which you think might usefully find their way between these covers, we hope that you will contact us and share them with all who might wish to have them at hand.

Back to top

Car Sharing Track Home

Your Comments

Send E-mail