Uniqway - students' carsharing project transforms mobility

"When we try to have a clear look at the evolution of transportation, we could see bright beginnings with shady todays. Many governmental organizations, institutions, technological companies, and even NGOs are trying to deal with current challenges in transport, mostly resulting in costly congestions. Moreover, almost everybody is expecting the change will be instant. A scientific view of the topic cannot be that simple. The current world of transport offers many data-based so-called solutions dealing with congestions. Furthermore, we have new transport devices, smaller, efficient, single purpose. Last but not least, old technological tools are being transformed by a new approach to the relation between the transportation provider and its user. We can see navigation apps enhanced with real-time traffic data promoting selfish behavior leading to the devastation of calm neighborhoods and local roads by directing high traffic through such places. History of narrow city streets is thwarted by oversized shared bicycles waiting for their next rider or literally blocked by piles of e-scooters. Hence, the environment is adapting to these novelties. Often it is performed in the most convenient way, not in an optimal manner. One of the new approaches to old types of transport is carsharing – user still drives a car by himself, but he does not own the vehicle. It is expected that the current global vehicle fleet of private cars could be reduced almost by 30% if proper carsharing systems are widely adopted. However, proper adoption and time to achieve it are the most significant challenges. The average lifecycle of a single vehicle ends after ca. twenty years of service. Technologies, which allowed the rise of carsharing exist and have widely penetrated into the market in the last few years, even though the carsharing itself is known since ca. 1950s. Therefore, if we would like to observe the real benefit of carsharing, we need to wait until the lifecycle of at least 30% of vehicles will end, while the carsharing is highly available to anybody anywhere. It could be a very long time. On the other hand, current trends in ownership show a different approach to the new generations. Some of the studies doubt the longevity of their alternative attitude, as the needs change with age, family life, employment, etc. Nevertheless, dealing with the young generation, such as students, means dealing with people without a car and relatively low income. Thus, on the one hand, it is an excellent opportunity to reduce the number of stationary vehicles on the streets in the future, but it is a tough challenge in promoting relatively expensive service. Project Uniqway is a carsharing service entirely developed and operated by students with the financial support of ŠKODA AUTO. The student team's limited capacity and focus on development resulted in heavy deployment automation and migration from custom high maintenance and virtual machine-based solutions to cloud-based infrastructure. Challenges of this transformation and data-driven approach pointing out specifics of immensely successful carsharing service in the Czech Republic are unveiled in the proposed article."