Under participation of Chinese city representatives, researchers and carsharing providers, GIZ organized a workshop on “The Integration of Carsharing in Parking Management in China” on March 9, 2014. The workshop took place prior to the Urban Transport Development Forum at the Chinese Ministry of Transport, where parking management in Chinese cities was one of the focal subjects to be discussed.
As parking challenges can heavily differ among different types of carsharing, the workshop participants separated in breakout groups and discussed specific requirements of station-based as well as free-floating carsharing systems. While the carsharing operators outlined their perspective on parking in Chinese cities, it became clear that the missing unification of parking responsibilities as well as poor parking management can have a crucial impact on the feasibility and development of carsharing services. Demand-based pricing of on-street parking and enforcement of illegal parking could help to reduce the parking pressure in cities and mitigate the challenges parking poses for carsharing operators in China. Especially free-floating carsharing could tremendously benefit from unified local parking authorities, as the operators depend on finding an agreement with cities on how to pay for the usage of public parking spaces.
Since carsharing as well as parking management both aim to reduce VKT and car ownership in cities, the workshop participants could recognize clear synergies: Parking management can open up public on-street parking spaces, which can be used for carsharing stations and carsharing parking. In return, carsharing decreases the dependency on car ownership, which supports a shift towards public- and non-motorised transport options and reduces the pressure on parking.
