Carsharing in Mexico City

As cities look to combat congestion and increase capacity without actually increasing capacity, carsharing and carpooling have become popular options and in Mexico City, it's finally catching on.
Small startups from recent university graduates in Mexico City have taken hold. Companies such as Aventones have focused on collaborations with major institutions--government organizations, businesses and universities with an average of 200 members--and use online systems to match up carpooling routes, while others like Carrot have work more along the lines of Zipcar. Carrot maintains that each shared vehicle replaces 20 private cars (IPS). With a growth in this industry, this may be a way to alleviate some portion of the congestion caused by 49 million trips daily (all modes) and decrease the reported current rate of motorization with nearly 200,000 new cars added to the roads of Mexico City each year (Centre for Sustainable Transport). With greater options available that complement the public transit system, there may be a decrease in car ownership and single occupancy vehicles that strain the transportation network.

Both carsharing and carpooling in Mexico City has led to a decrease in the negative externalities of driving such as emissions, gasoline usage and VMT. It has yet to be seen if these initiatives will be embraced by the local government, which has directed its attention towards BRT, bike sharing and electric taxis. All of these will have to be integrated to tackle the sheer number of trips of the 20.4 million residents in the metro area.