Car sharing: dimensions and rental period are growing. What else has changed in the year since the pandemic?

Just the other day, the Moscow government allowed to increase the maximum dimensions of cars and the lease period for metropolitan operators. Now you can rent cars up to 4950 mm long and up to 2000 mm wide, and the rental period has been raised from 24 hours to seven days. This will surely spur demand for the service, which was crippled by the corona crisis.  

Car sharing began to develop actively in our country 6 years ago, and the growth in demand for the per-minute car rental service continued until the pandemic. Fortunately, the crisis was replaced by new trends, and the audience was also actively changing.

According to the metropolitan operator Delimobil, compared to 2020, the number of trips increased by more than 60%, and compared to 2019, more than doubled. Currently, the services of only one Delimobile make about 120,000 trips per day, while both the distance and the average time are growing.

One of the trends that started in the summer of 2020 and fully developed in 2021 is active domestic tourism and demand for intercity travel. Until 2020, car sharing was perceived by customers mainly as an intracity mode of transport, however, the closure of borders and quarantine restrictions brought autotourism and weekend tourism to a new level.

According to the results of Delimobil's own research, the number of trips over 150 km from Moscow has slightly more than doubled (from 16,000 to 42,000). The top popular tourist destinations in the neighboring regions of Moscow included Tver, Vladimir and Suzdal, Ryazan and Ples, Yaroslavl, Rostov the Great and Kostroma. Serpukhov, Sergiev Posad, Istra (New Jerusalem), Yakhroma and Kolomna became the most popular holiday destinations in the Moscow region.

So, from St. Petersburg, users can go on road trips around Karelia, from Novosibirsk to Sheregesh, from Kazan to Samara or Ulyanovsk. During the year, more than 450 destinations for tourism have been opened all over recently, and the service has also been launched in two new cities – Rostov-on-Don and Kazan.

The number of daily rents is also growing. Many citizens have continued to work remotely and rent cars for a long time in order to continue working in their summer cottages or holiday homes.

Another interesting trend is the active growth of the female audience in carsharing: by more than 38% over the period from January to August year on year. St. Petersburg became the record holder among 11 cities where Delimobil operates. Here, the number of users among the female audience has grown by 1.7 times compared to 2020. So, child seats are installed in a third of the carsharing cars of the Northern capital.