An electric car for everyone in the neighborhood:Genoa experiments with condominium car sharing

Elettra Car Sharing and the Municipality of Genoa inaugurate an innovative pilot project of sustainable and shared mobility at city level.

• The inhabitants of the Il Biscione neighborhood have the opportunity to share an electric car via a dedicated car sharing app, reducing the environmental impact and promoting community cooperation.
• The service, supported by the Municipality of Genoa, offers discounted rates to residents and represents a step forward towards more sustainable urban mobility.
• The initiative is part of the actions promoted by Elettra Car Sharing and confirms the commitment of the Il Biscione cooperative to environmental sustainability and the sharing of resources.

TO Genoa, in the Il Biscione district, the first pilot project is active condominium car sharing citizen.This innovative service, developed by Elettra Car Sharing with the support of the Municipality of Genoa, allows residents of the neighborhood to use electric vehicles shared among the inhabitants of the same condominium.Initially, the community service offers residents access to an electric car from the Elettra fleet, reserved exclusively for them.The project aims to be an experiment for a new model shared and sustainable mobility which aims to simplify the movements in busy streets of the city centers of Italy.

The details of the Genoese project

Starting fromlast April, one Volkswagen e-Up!electric is available to residents of the Genoese area of ​​Il Biscione (also known as Fort Quezzi) who will join the project, which can be booked via the service app and can be used following the standard rules of city car sharing.The car is parked in a special reserved space in the central Via Loria and residents can use it discounted rates.A similar project has already been implemented in Italy, precisely in Milan:in the Porta Nuova neighborhood, residents can take advantage of the electric cars available to the community thanks to the program Elect3City promoted by Volvo.

“A truly innovative project that is part of the path taken by our Administration for the design and implementation of mobility that is not only sustainable, but also shared as much as possible”, declared the municipal councilor for Integrated Mobility, Transport and Environment Matteo Campora.Not everyone knows that private cars remain stationary on average for a good part of their life cycle.Through the car sharing, on the other hand, increases the efficiency in the use of the vehicle which can be used by multiple people, with an important reduction in the number of vehicles in circulation and its environmental impact.“We are particularly happy that the first service of this kind in the city, electrical and condominium, start from an area like Biscione, densely inhabited and for this reason particularly suitable for the launch of this project which we hope to be able to extend to other populous areas of Genoa in the future", adds Campora.

The benefits of car sharing

The Genoa project is carried out by Elettra Car Sharing, a service 100 percent electric car sharing launched in Genoa by the Duferco Energia company, one of the leading energy and gas suppliers at a national level.Today Elettra manages 160 full-electric cars, available to Genoese citizens both in rental mode station based, i.e. fixed stall, both in free floating, or with free release of the car within an operational area of ​​the Municipality of Genoa.The service records over 10,000 subscribers and, since he left (July 2021), Elettra's cars have traveled more than 2.8 million kilometers, for a positive impact on reducing emissions of over 300 tonnes CO2.

Community car sharing can become one concrete alternative in the context of city mobility. “It not only promotes environmental sustainability,” he comments Marco Silvestri, Director of Elettra Car Sharing, “but it also promotes a sense of belonging and cooperation among residents which for us is the true innovative key of the project.We want residents to feel part of the project, to give their contribution to perfecting it, making it a replicable model."Some research conducted in the Netherlands and other European cities, reported by The Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, indicate that the neighborhood car sharing it is emerging as an integral element of urban development, increasingly considered in residential planning and local transport plans.Such a service in a small space such as a neighborhood not only promotes sustainable mobility, but also the sense of community and collaboration.