A multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Michigan (U-M) has received a $700,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to expand access to affordable, reliable and sustainable community carsharing. The project, titled “Data-Driven Analytics for Scaling Up Community Carshare: Bringing Affordable, Reliable, and Clean Carshare to More People,” is part of NSF’s Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC).
U-M Seth Bonder Collegiate Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering and Goff Smith Co-Director of the Tauber Institute for Global Operations, Saif Benjaafar, is the principal investigator on the project. He is joined by co-investigators Elisabeth Gerber, Martin Zubeldia and Yafeng Yin.
The team will design, deploy, and test decision-support tools that help optimize the efficiency, affordability, and availability of community carshare systems. The pilot aims to answer fundamental questions, including:
- What drives demand for community carsharing?
- How should a community carshare go about balancing the needs for efficiency, availability and affordability?
- What features or incentives encourage greater carshare usage and mitigate the spatial and temporal mismatch between vehicle supply and demand?
“This pilot can serve as a template for how community carsharing can be scaled up in a cost-effective way while improving availability, increasing affordability and extending the reach of public transit,” said Benjaafar. “It can also serve as a blueprint for how cities, transit authorities and community-based organizations can partner to bridge the gap between essential resources and services and community needs.”
The research will be conducted in partnership with HOURCAR, the nation’s largest nonprofit carshare provider, along with the Cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis through their EV Spot Network, a publicly owned fleet of electric vehicles and chargers. As HOURCAR prepares for growth, the U-M team’s data will guide decisions around service densification, regional expansion, pricing and incentives and daily operations.
“The system is designed to create a clean, affordable and reliable transportation option,” said Amy Brendmoen, HOURCAR CEO. “The goal is to ensure that this option serves those with the greatest transportation needs.”
The project could transform how cities and transit authorities approach sustainable mobility. In addition to advancing academic understanding, the tools and insights generated may serve as a model for scaling community-based carsharing across the country, reducing costs, supporting public transit and promoting cleaner transportation.
For U-M IOE, this award highlights the department’s commitment to research that connects engineering, data science and real-world impact. The one-year grant runs from September 2025 through August 2026.
About the CIVIC Innovation Challenge
CIVIC is a unique federal partnership that prioritizes community engagement, transdisciplinary research and real-world pilots that center communities and their priorities to drive forward scientific innovation. CIVIC is organized in two stages. In the first stage, teams utilized planning grants of up to $75,000 per team over a period of six months. These teams then refined their projects and competed for second-stage grants of up to $700,000 per team over a period of 12 months. The grants target ready-to-implement research-based pilot projects that have the potential for scalable, sustainable and transferable impact on community-identified priorities. Explore all of the selected projects.
This story was written by Jessalyn Tamez, University of Michigan Industrial and Operations Engineering.
