Combining use and provision practices in socio-ecological transitions – the case of car-sharing in swedish flexible parking standards in new residential buildings

This paper combines mobility biography with Social Practice Theory (SPT) to understand whether flexible parking standards (where developers can substitute parking spaces with mobility services) can increase car-sharing and lower car ownership through an investigation of eight blocks of flats in Sweden, using interviews, surveys and car-sharing data. We also study ‘provision practices’ of mobility services by combining SPT with Actor Network Theory (ANT). The use of car-sharing increased in all blocks of flats and car ownership decreased in three of the houses. We draw the conclusion that when some material circumstances intersect with key life events the materiality of flexible parking standards may ‘be the weight that tips the scale’, and make people sell their car. The spatio-temporal sequencing of bundled practices changes over the life-course and our results indicate that the policy reform may facilitate for a prolonged period without cars in the household. For car sharing to recruit practitioners, it is important that the mobility services remain and are adequately administered. Finally, the flexible parking standard policy needs to be well aligned with other policies for car-sharing to recruit practitioners from the private car practice.