EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON USERS’ ATTITUDES ABOUT CARSHARING IN THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA

The urban population has been growing and this is the current issue many cities are facing, especially those not planned in the way as to provide for the commuting of continuously growing number of people. This leads to traffic congestions in urban areas, pollution, over-use of non-renewable energy resources and noise pollution vehicles create. The possible solution to this problem of mass transportation may be found in the form of carpooling i.e. the system of car-sharing based on the principle of sustainable development. In the last decades, buying and owning a car has become more affordable, this resulting in the development of road networks that have been overloading urban areas. However, due to the facts that parking has become an issue in these areas, and that costs of owning a personal car have been increasing, carpooling has been gaining on popularity throughout the world. In line with that, the purpose of this paper is to investigate users' attitudes on carpooling in the Republic of Croatia. The findings have shown that, although they are present on the Croatian market, a smaller number of the participants in the research use the services carpooling. The respondents who do use carpooling services state that the reasons for doing so are lower costs, avoiding the search for a parking spot and contributing to protecting the environment. The positive side to is that many respondents that have not yet used this service state they will be doing so in the future.