In March 2004, the Transportation Resources for Arlington County (TRAC) unit of the Department of Environmental Services partnered with the two carshare companies —Flexcar and Zipcar—to provide expanded carshare services and promotions called the Arlington Pilot Carshare Program. This report documents the success of the program, and makes the case for replicating the program in other Arlington urban villages to make it a permanent part of the transportation landscape in Arlington.
The overall goals of the Program were the following:
- To dramatically raise vehicle availability and visibility of carsharing in Arlington, thereby increasing membership and use.
- To provide safe, convenient pickup/dropoff locations at all metro stations in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, essentially making carsharing an extension of the existing transportation infrastructure.
- To validate carsharing as a viable alternative to car ownership through a high profile partnership with the county.
The Arlington Pilot Carshare Program has been a major success increasing carshare vehicles by 125%, carshare membership by 116%, and carshare use by over 150%. The Pilot Carshare Program survey results corroborated with evidence from leading North American and European studies to show that carsharing allows members to reduce their car ownership, encourages more transit trips, reduces the number of cars on the road and reduces the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Carsharing services provide an important component of an integrated, mobility-management system that complements Arlington transit-oriented, walkable, urban-village concepts and helps TRAC meet its program goals.
It is envisioned that the Arlington Pilot Carshare Program success can be replicated in other Arlington urban villages such as Crystal City, Pentagon City, Shirlington, Columbia Pike and more. The Arlington Pilot Carshare Program accomplishments are in large part due to the high-visibility carshare vehicles that are parked on-street, the convenience of the service, and the safety of the members. Building upon this success,
TRAC is expanding the “pilot program” to a permanent part of the transportation landscape in Arlington.
Contact the TRAC Research Team for more information.