A Case Study on the Socio-Technical Configuration of Car-Sharing in the City of Malmö

Abstract: Previous research has found car-sharing schemes to have great potential, internationally and locally, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the personal transport sector, and contain significant locally bounded advantages with implications for improved urban sustainable mobility and more efficient land-use. The aim of the paper is to explore how and why shared mobility services, specifically car-sharing, have emerged and grown as a niche-innovation in the context of Malmö, Sweden, and to look at how the presence of car-sharing has impacted the reproduction of mobility patterns among households in the residential area of Fullriggaren. To accommodate the two areas of exploration, two theoretical frameworks are employed, that of socio-technical systems and social practice theory. Empirical findings suggest local population and urban growth as pressures instigating a municipal agenda with focus on sustainable mobility, where efficient urban land-use, politics of densification, property developers, automobile producers, and the City of Malmö play an important role in establishing the growth and socio-technical configuration of the car-sharing niche in Malmö. Qualitative data findings indicate the impact of car-sharing on some households’ mobility patterns appear to be relatively limited, although there are suggestions that some changes occur