Car-sharing sparks public anger in Moscow
By: Roma Nazarov
Tags: Conflicts Of Interest, Moscow, Urban Planning, Driving, Car Sharing

Each night, Moscow drivers race against each other on the way home. The prize is worth trying hard — a free parking lot in the residential area. This year’s new norm is when drivers, on many occasions, can’t find a one but, instead, see vehicles belonging to car-sharing companies parked among privately owned ones.

Moscow’s shared fleet is often said to be the largest in the world and one of the most affordable with prices as low as $0.05 per minute. Some of the car-sharing providers offer overnight specials, tempting people to park in yards. Recent researches also proved that ease of access to shared transport have not reasoned people into getting rid of private cars. On the contrary, car-sharing seems to be attacking bus and metro now, as a lion share of its users are former coach passengers. That is why we’re seeing even more cars on Moscow streets, that is why competition for parkings is the fiercest in the city’s history.

While it’s expected that, in future, car-sharing is going to squeeze private cars out of the city, no expert has predicted that the latter would fight back. This summer, the tension led to a ‘media war’ over parkings between Moscow drivers, city administration and car sharing operators.

Some representatives in the publics blamed the booming car-sharing industry to have caused acute deficit of parking lots in residential areas. In response to that cries, the government sounded a proposal to reverse some of the providers’ parking benefits. No wonder, the providers sharply criticized the government for that, causing the latter to withdraw. Currently, the benefits plan stays unchanged.

Another portion of backlash came in autumn 2020 upon rumors about providers taking off car branding stickers to disguise shared cars among private ones. The operators confronted those rumors claiming that stickers were an indispensable part of their branding mix. The government supported them with corresponding statements.

When old and new can’t co-live

Moscow stands left foot in the Soviet past, right foot in the shark-capitalism present.

On the left side, we find a root cause of Moscow dwellers’ love to private cars. Currently, there are 4 million of them and the number is growing in spite of the parking challenges and the famous Moscow road congestions. That love was explained by Alexander Ladygin, CEO at P2P car-sharing provider RentRide, in my recent reportage for TU-Automotive: “In some part, this mentality comes from the Soviet period of history when a car was the only and most expensive private property, possessing a one was a luck rarely happening twice in a life.” Everybody wants their own car. And they still think bad about common property.

Then, Moscow residential areas offer extremely tiny parking facilities. In the older districts built through the 1970s, 80s and 90s it happens because, by that time, nobody foreshadowed the future car boom. The parking spaces in the newer ones are even smaller, an outcome of the fare war in the real estate market.

Fast development of car-sharing comes from too much incentives applied by the regulators who wished to quickly fix the parking problem. As Arthur D. Little Russia head Alexander Ovanesov told me in another interview for TU-Automotive: “You can see what happens with taxis and car-sharing in Moscow. Thanks to the applied incentives, it flourished recently so that our measurements show that it’s a surplus to the private fleet instead of a substitute. The authorities are now thinking about reversing their policies.”

They cannot do much in that direction, though, because of obligations before the car-sharing investors. Instead, they’re spearing ahead with a municipal peer-to-peer car-sharing project. Not a bad idea but, personally, I think that the most sustainable policy would be to concentrate on higher convenience of public transport and better cycling environment. And, even more so, on educating citizens about conscious, flexible and responsible commuting.

And, even more so, be a role model themselves so I’m looking forward to see the mayor of Moscow and his team cycling or walking to their offices.