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Electromobility for Tourists: Testing Business Models in the Paris Region
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Transportation Research Procedia 19 (2016) 164 – 175
International Scientific Conference on Mobility and Transport Transforming Urban Mobility, mobil.TUM 2016, 6-7 June 2016, Munich, Germany
Electromobility for tourists: testing business models in the Paris region Gaele Lesteven*, Fabien Leurent Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, LVMT, Marne-la-Vallée, France
Abstract
Electric vehicles (EV) bring benefits for the urban environment but represent an additional cost for households. That is why the spread of electromobility starts with niche markets appropriate to their territorial context. On this principle, we design a business model for an EV sharing scheme based on assumptions about sites attractive to tourists to the technical means of production passing by the estimate of potential demand. To address the challenge of profitability, several scenarios are tested, with different fleet sizes and financing costs. In the model, investment costs represent 26 to 34% of total costs and variable costs account for 50 to 62% of operating costs. The project can be undertaken regardless of fleet size, provided that its financing cost is 8% or less. It raises questions about the distribution of the value generated. © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-reviewunder under responsibility oforganizing the organizing committee of mobil.TUM Peer-review responsibility of the committee of mobil.TUM 2016. 2016. Keywords: electric vehicle; car sharing; business model; Paris region, Disneyland, tourism
1. Introduction Electromobility – the use of electric vehicles (EV) – brings benefits for the urban environment (less noise and pollution), but represents an additional purchase cost for users. For purely electric vehicles, battery capacity limits the range between recharges, which also contributes to restricting household demand. In France, around 30% of households might be interested in buying an EV, because of all the measures introduced in favour of electric vehicles
* Corresponding author. Tel: 33 (0)1 81 66 88 67 E-mail address: [email protected]
2352-1465 © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of mobil.TUM 2016. doi:10.1016/j.trpro.2016.12.077
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(Windish, 2013). These households are motorised, have access to private parking and can continue to meet their mobility needs while replacing one of their internal combustion vehicles with an EV. The purchase of an EV is therefore primarily motivated by financial advantage, since the total costs of owning an EV are lower than for an internal combustion vehicle. The environmental benefit, for its part, is indirectly supported through the purchase bonus awarded by the government. Nonetheless, such potential buyers remain a small proportion of French households, and it is possible that some of them prefer the second-hand market which represents almost 60% of vehicles sold in France today. That is why the spread of electromobility begins with niche markets, mainly utility vehicles in urban conditions and shared vehicle fleets for companies. In both these cases, the instigator is a business: it decides to acquire EV as one of the factors in the profitability of its activity. We looked for other niche markets where EV ownership could be worthwhile in introducing a specific service, appropriate to a given scale: the home, the neighbourhood, a road axis or the whole conurbation. We identified a dozen niches (Leurent et al, 2016). From among them, we propose to develop an EV sharing scheme aimed at tourists visiting Disneyland Paris, Europe’s leading tourist hub. We construct a theoretical business model and seek to evaluate its viability. This textbook case raises questions about how including tourists in the scope of transforming urban mobility, the profitability of new mobility services and the distribution of the value generated between public and private actors. Section 2 explores the development of shared mobility services, which are vectors of electromobility. Section 3 describes the research terrain, i.e. the new town of Marne-la-Vallée, which is home to the Disneyland Paris theme park, in the east of the Paris region. Section 4 presents a shared mobility service targeting families visiting Disneyland Paris. Section 5 develops the business model of the service. Section 6 reaches conclusions about the viability of such a service in terms of profitability, value sharing and territorial embeddedness. 2. Shared mobility services and electromobility 2.1. The impacts of electric on mobility The spread of electromobility brings about changes in the production of mobility. To begin with, electric technology is one of the instruments for producing sustainable mobility (Banister, 2008), by limiting local pollutant emissions and reducing noise pollution from vehicles. The spread of electric vehicles also encourages carmakers to adjust their economic model: while they continue to sell the vehicle, they rent the battery. This brings a shift from product-based business models to service-based business models (Ceschin and Vezzoli, 2010). Carmakers become service providers, some of them – such as Daimler with its Car2Go scheme or Renault with TwizyWay – to the point of providing car sharing services (see 3.3). With this phenomenon, there is a rapprochement with the role of traditional car hire firms, which are themselves increasingly becoming car share operators (Shaheen and Cohen, 2013). Finally, EV use has a positive effect on the behaviour of motorists who, once they have tasted electric, are reluctant to return to internal combustion. In France, the company La Poste has equipped its postal delivery staff with 5,000 Renault Kangoo ZE. The staff appreciate the ease of driving an EV (smooth acceleration, no gearbox, no noise) and no longer want to go back to internal combustion (Simon, 2013). Another survey asked users of the Car2Go car sharing scheme in Ulm in Germany about their use of the electric and internal combustion vehicles provided under the scheme. The results show that EV users in car sharing schemes are more inclined to dispose of their own car than those who use an internal combustion vehicle for car sharing (Firnkorn and Müller, 2015). 2.2. Increasing diversity of shared mobility services Shared mobility is part of a wider movement – the shared economy – that relies in part on the extensive use of digital technologies. Still only a niche market a decade ago, shared mobility is now embodied in a multitude of services around the world, albeit not yet defined. In fact, there is as yet no consensus in the scientific literature over the boundaries of shared mobility, with some encompassing traditional car rental and others emphasising the importance of digital applications (Le Vine and Polak, 2015). Nevertheless, a common trend is apparent towards a gradual
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separation between car ownership and car use. Likewise, the choice to equip shared mobility services with EV would favour positive externalities (Cohen and Kietzmann, 2014). Shared mobility services can be divided into a number of business models, which flourish to a greater or lesser degree, depending on operating methods (ranging from weekly car rental to hourly car sharing), geographical area, target demographic, impact on mobility behaviour and on the environment. The models fall into four main categories (Shaheen and Cohen, 2013). The most widespread and also the oldest service is round-trip car sharing: the user subscribes to the scheme then hires a vehicle by the hour or by the day. The vehicle is collected from a given pickup point and dropped off at the same point. Round-trip car sharing is often perceived as a complement to public transport (Le Vine et al, 2014; 6t, 2013). It leads to a reduction in individual car use and mileage, and therefore diminishes greenhouse gas emissions (Martin and Shaheen, 2011). A more recent development is one-way car sharing: the user hires a vehicle at one pickup point and drops it off at another (station-based car sharing). In some cases, there are no stations at all: users find the vehicle by GPS on smartphone and park it where they want (free-floating car sharing). The next step will be for these vehicles to become autonomous (Fagnant and Kockelman, 2014). Often located in dense urban areas, one-way car sharing is primarily used for short journeys, for both leisure and commuting purposes. It would appear more to be a substitute for public transport than a complement (Le Vine et al, 2014; 6t, 2014). Alongside the round-trip and one-way systems, another type of developing scheme is peer-to-peer car sharing or personal vehicle sharing. The business model here is different, since in this case private individuals occasionally rent their vehicles to other private individuals, often via online brokering platforms. There is as yet little information about the mobility practices and environmental impact associated with this type of car sharing (Shaheen et al, 2012). Since it pertains to privately owned vehicles, it is less likely to include electric vehicles than the other types. Finally, car sharing for tourists is an emerging form of car sharing, initiated with the GreenCar experiments in Hawaii (Shaheen and Cohen, 2013). Launched in 2011 but since closed, the GreenCar scheme offered hotel customers EV to rent by the hour or by the day. A similar scheme was developed in 2013 in Orlando, Florida, near the main attractions (Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, SeaWorld Marine Park). Called Drive Electric Orlando, this scheme arose from a partnership between a US pro-electric electric vehicle group, the Electrification coalition, the car rental firm Rent-a-Car and Orlando’s main hotels and theme parks. Its target market is tourists on family visits to Orlando or on business trips. The objective is to spread the use of EV by providing the possibility of trying them out for several days (Electric Coalition, 2013). This is also the stated goal in the tourist town of Kitakyushu in Japan, where an association offers visitors EV, electric scooters and electric bicycles to rent (Nakamura and Abe, 2016). This educational objective goes hand-in-hand with the promotion of sustainable tourism (Gössling et al, 2005). Our work focuses on this latter form of car sharing, which has so far received little scholarly attention, based on a theoretical study on an EV sharing scheme for tourists visiting Disneyland Paris. 3. Potential of tourist electromobility in the Paris region 3.1. Presentation of the research territory The Paris region (or Île-de-France) is France’s most populous region, with 11.8 million inhabitants, almost 20% of the population of Metropolitan France, in an area of 12,012 square kilometres, representing only 2% of the metropolitan territory (INSEE, 2011). As illustrated in the map below, the region consists of Paris City, the inner suburbs and the outer suburbs. Situated east of Paris, Marne-la-Vallée is the largest and most populous of the five new towns built in the 1960s. Extending some 20 km along the Marne Valley, it houses almost 300,000 inhabitants in an area 1.5 times larger than the city of Paris. The eastern part of the new town is home to the Disneyland theme park, and more generally to the tourist infrastructure developed since Disney’s arrival in 1987. It has good road and rail provision: it is linked to Paris by the A4 motorway and to Charles de Gaulle Airport by the A104 motorway. It also has two RER (regional railway) stations and a TGV (high-speed train) station.
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Fig. 1. Layout of the Paris region, the new towns and Disneyland Paris
3.2. Disneyland Paris: a major tourist catchment zone in the Paris region The US’s Walt Disney Company set up in France in 1987 and opened Disneyland Paris in 1992. In the space of almost 25 years, Disney has created a major tourist destination from scratch, Europe’s leading tourist destination with almost 15 million visits a year (Fabry, 2013). The subsidiary Euro Disney SCA operates a complex consisting of two theme parks (Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios, with a third on the drawing board), a fleet of five hotels (5,800 rooms), a campsite and a golf course. Around the complex, other hotels have sprung up, along with the shopping centre, which every year attracts as many visitors as Disney, and the Vallée Village outlet which brings in almost 7 million annual visitors. Disney’s choice of location is explained by its situation at the centre of Europe and its international accessibility. According to data from an internal survey conducted in 2014 within the Euro Disney SCA Group (2014), 45% of visitors to Disneyland Paris came by public transport, 31% of them by plane or by train. This area is now moving towards the development of sustainable tourism through Villages Nature, with its focus on the ecotourism market. Still under construction, this holiday village, financed by Disney and Pierre et Vacances, will open in 2017. It is expected to attract 2 million visitors a year by 2020. Disneyland Park represents a major tourist catchment. 31% of the 46 million tourists visiting the Paris region each year come to the Park. The Park welcomes 38% of international tourists to Paris region and 9% of those coming to France (DGE, 2015; CRT Paris Île-de-France, 2015). International tourists account for more than 50% of visitors to the Park (Disneyland Paris, 2015b). 3.3. Experiences in EV sharing in the Paris region There is no EV sharing scheme aimed at tourists in the Paris region, although some transport operators are considering it (Bernini, 2015). There are, however, several EV sharing services for residents.
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The best known is the Autolib’ one-way scheme. Launched in December 2009, it is run by the firm Autolib’, a subsidiary of the Bolloré Group, under a public service licence granted by the public-private Autolib’ structure, which consists of the city of Paris and 85 other municipalities in the Paris region. There are 1,042 stations, offering 3,698 EV for rent. An Autolib’ car is hired on average 4.7 times a weekday. The average journey is 9.3 km. The car runs on average 3 hours 10 minutes and travels 44 km a day (Autolib’ Métropole, 2016). After four years of operation, Autolib’ has almost reached breakeven. TwizyWay was another EV sharing scheme, present in the Paris region from 2011 to 2014. This free-floating oneway service was based around a fleet of 50 Twizy, two-seater electric quadbikes produced by Renault. Launched by the carmaker in December 2011, the service operated across several municipalities in the new town of Saint-Quentinen-Yvelines, west of Paris. In economic terms, the scheme fell far short of viability. Although some 1% of the inhabitants of the coverage zone were members, the vehicles were used on average only 17 minutes a day and for a single trip. The scheme was finally suspended in July 2014. TwizyWay should be understood more as a showcase for the manufacturer than as a genuine service for residents (Shadeghian, 2013). Finally, since 2014, the operator Mopeasy has been providing an electric car sharing service across the new town of Marne-la-Vallée. In 2011, the local authorities decided to establish a network of streetside charging terminals in order to encourage electromobility in their territory. The car sharing service is intended as an adjunct to this project. A round-trip system was chosen, since it is aimed at residents for their local journeys. The goal is to limit household car ownership, since bus provision in the new town is primarily designed to link with the regional rail stations. The project is 60% subsidised (Sobreira, 2016). The first stations were opened in 2014. Today, there are 17 stations in operation, offering 14 EV to rent, mainly Renault Zoé ZE. Ultimately, 80 stations are planned within the new town, with a fleet of 50 EV. Up to now, the interaction between shared mobility services and electromobility in the Paris region has produced three business models which, though different, all target local residents: x Autolib’, a car sharing service available in dense urban areas, equipped with EV specially designed for this scheme, almost coming into profit after four years of operation; x TwizyWay, an industrial showcase for the Twizy vehicle, located in the periurban area near Renault’s research centre, which proved unviable and closed after three years of operation; x Mopeasy, a highly subsidised periurban electric recharging service, in operation for a year and a half and associated with a round-trip car sharing scheme based around the Renault Zoé ZE. We propose to develop a fourth business model, no longer designed for residents but primarily for tourists. 4. Proposal of an “Autodisney” service 4.1. Key determinants for an EV sharing scheme The scheme that we propose is inspired by what has been done in Orlando, Florida. Its target market is tourists visiting Disneyland Park. The idea is to encourage non-motorised families to stay longer and to visit other major tourist attractions in the Paris region that are difficult to access by public transport from the Park, but can be reached by an EV hired at their hotel. To sum up, the key determinants of this scheme are: - The promotion of the Park and its surroundings as a tourist spot for longer stays; - The multisite potential of the Paris region within EV’s travel range (50 to 70 km one way, with absence of charging terminals at destination); - The opportunity to travel by car, which offers comfort and intimacy at a good price, compared to taxi and public transport.
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4.2. Market study: accommodation for longer stays Tourists have the option of staying in hotels in Disneyland Park, but also in tourist residences outside the Park and, from 2017, in the Villages Nature holiday village. According to the 20-year report on Disneyland Park (2012), 61% of visitors spent at least 2 days in the Park and all the foreign visitors spent 2 days, or even, in 27% of cases, 3 days. Half the visitors stayed in paying accommodation, 24.2% of them in the Park’s hotels, and 5% in partner accommodation. In 2011, the Park provides accommodation for 2.37 million people. The tourists who stay in the Park’s hotels are mainly families with children, as well as some business customers, since certain hotels provide conference facilities. The objective of the Villages Nature holiday village is to keep visitors for 4 to 5 night. The package is addressed to a clientele that is educated and reasonably well-off, mainly from Northern Europe. Finally, a proportion of visitors stay in apartment-hotels outside the Park, and could easily extend their stay. 4.3. Market study: tourist attractions within EV’s travel range As shown on figure 2 and table 1, the main tourist sites of the Paris region, including Versailles Castle, are within a radius of 70 km of Disneyland Paris.
Fig. 2. The main tourist sites within a radius of 70 km of Disneyland Paris
According to the Park’s data (Disneyland Paris, 2015a), one third of foreign visitors also visit the city of Paris which is easily accessible by regional train (RER). However, only 3 to 5% of visitors staying in the Park go outside it to visit tourist sites other than those in Paris city (Fabry and Zeghni, 2016). When they do so, their first destination is Parc des Félins, a zoo dedicated to the feline family, which has very poor public transport provision. This animal park aims to act as a complement to Disneyland, by evoking the world of the Lion King. Next, they may visit the Great War Museum in Meaux, which has made a special advertising effort to attract Disney customers, for example with the information that Walt Disney had been an ambulance driver in Paris during the First World War. Finally, foreign tourists apparently enjoy the market in Lagny-sur-Marne, a picturesque village on the Marne River, some 10 km away. It may be that some of the educated and well-off tourists staying at Villages Nature would wish to explore more cultural destinations, such as the castles of Fontainebleau or Vaux-le-Vicomte, the painters’ circle in Barbizon or the mediaeval citadel of Provins.
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Visits in 2014
Distance by road
14,200,000
0 km
In the Paris region (outside Paris city) Versailles Castle
7,702,136
67 km
Fontainebleau Castle
517,000
67 km
Parc des Félins zoo
295,000
30 km
Vaux-le-Vicomte Castle
290,000
45 km
Saint-Denis Basilica
168,496
56 km
Museum of the Great War in Meaux
133,333
31 km
Vincennes Castle
129,662
35 km
In the city of Paris
45 km
Louvre Museum
9,134,612
Eiffel Tower
7,097,302
Orsay Museum
3,480,609
Zoological Park
1,300,000 Sources: CRT Paris, 2015
4.4. Estimate of potential demand According to the Park’s data (Disneyland Paris, 2015a), the 5,800 rooms have 75.4% occupancy. We assume that: x The 5,800 rooms are occupied 75.4% for 365 nights a year. There are 2 visitors per room per night. We obtain 3,2 million visitor.nights a year. x 5 to 15% of them would be ready to stay for one week and, of these, 10 to 30% would be interested in an EV rental service. We obtain 15,900 to 143,700 visitor.nights a year. x Visitors come primarily in families. So about 3,900 to 35,900 four-person families would be interested in the service each year. This means that 75 to 690 families could rent an EV each week. In addition, accommodation outside Disneyland Park represents the equivalent of some 30% of the Park’s hotel capacity. With an occupancy rate of 65% and 1.5 people on average per room per night, this makes around 200,000 families a year. Now these families often stay in apartment-hotels. It is likely that at least 15 to 30% of them would be more inclined to extend their stay. This adds up to a further 60 to 340 families interested in the service. The potential demand for the service is thus estimated at 135 to 1,030 families a week. 5. Presentation of the business model We provide several scenarios, based on the number of EV operating: a scenario with 50 EV, a scenario with 100 EV, a scenario with 150 EV and a scenario with 200 EV. In light of the demand estimate, the final scenario seems to present the maximum volume of EV that can be realistically envisaged for such a service in the area. 5.1. Sales and price packages We assume that the rental charge for the EV will be €250 a week, which matches the price proposed for the Electric Car Orlando scheme. We estimate that each EV will be rented for around 30 weeks a year. This estimate stands between traditional rental where a vehicle is on-hire for around 80% of the time (24 days out of 30) and standard carshare, where a vehicle is used 6 to 9 hours a day, i.e. 25 to 45% of the time (Shaheen et Cohen, 2013). We propose
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to increase revenues by setting up a system of prepaid entry tickets, which would bring in around €18 per rental. The estimated revenue par family per week is €268. 5.2. Cost structure Investment costs We propose to buy Renault Zoé ZE cars at €16,000 each, including the €6,000 ecological bonus provided by the government. We estimate a resale value of €6,000 per EV after 5 years, or €4,000 after 7 years. In our business model, the EV are recharged overnight in the hotel car park, so one charging terminal is required for each EV. These are slowcharge terminals for private car parks, and therefore cheap (€1,000 per terminal). Finally, the jockeys responsible for dispatching the EV to the different car parks in response to demand and for maintaining them, are equipped with folding electric scooters at €1,500 each (Zakaria, 2015). We allow one scooter for 25 EV. Table 2 Investment costs, adjusted to the size of the fleet Scenarios EV price depreciated over 5 years (€10,000/unit)
50 EV €500,000
100 EV €1,000,000
150 EV €1,500,000
200 EV €2,000,000
EV price depreciated over 7 years (€12,000/unit)
€600,000
€1,200,000
€1,800,000
€2,400,000
€50,000
€100,000
€150,000
€200,000
2
4
6
8
€3,000
€6,000
€9,000
€12,000
Total investment depreciated (over 5 years)
€553,000
€1,106,000
€1,659,000
€2,212,000
Annual investment depreciated (over 5 years)
€110,600
€221,200
€331,800
€442,400
Total investment depreciated (over 7 years)
€653,000
€1,306,000
€1,959,000
€2,612,000
€93,286
€186,571
€279,857
€373,143
Slow-charge terminal price (€1,000/unit) Numbers of folding scooters (0,4/EV) Folding scooter price (€1,500/unit)
Annual investment depreciated (over 7 years)
Operation – variable costs The so-called variable operating costs are defined as the operating costs for an EV unit. They are calculated per year (see Table 3). We include the hire of the battery provided by Renault at €49 per month (€588), together with the cost of energy (€200), insurance (€400), telecommunications (€200), vehicle maintenance/service (€600) and parking (€600). Our estimate for the maintenance and energy costs of the scooters is €50 per year. Table 3 Variables operating costs, adjusted to the size of the fleet Scenarios Battery rental (€588/EV/year)
50 EV €29,400
100 EV €58,800
150 EV €88,200
Energy (€200/EV/year)
€10,000
€20,000
€30,000
€40,000
Insurance (€400/EV/year)
€20,000
€40,000
€60,000
€80,000
Telecommunications (€200/EV/year)
€10,000
€20,000
€30,000
€40,000
Vehicle maintenance/service (€600/EV/year)
€30,000
€60,000
€90,000
€120,000
Parking (€600/EV/year)
€30,000
€60,000
€90,000
€120,000
€100
€200
€300
€400
€129,500
€259,000
€388,500
€518,000
Maintenance/energy costs of the scooters (€50/scooter/year) Annual variable operating costs
200 EV €117,600
Operation – fixed costs The so-called fixed operating costs (see Table 4) comprise personnel costs, rent for the office and maintenance workshop, together with overheads.
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50 EV
Minimum wage + charges (MWC) per month
100 EV
150 EV
200 EV 1
€2000
Director (MWC)
3
0.5
1
1
Secretary/support function (MWC)
1
0.5
0.5
1
1
Ambassador (MWC)
1
3
5
7
9 11
Total employees
4
6.5
9
Total minimum wage + charges
5
8.5
11
13
€120,000
€204,000
€264,000
€312,000
€9,940
€13,090
€16,240
€18,760
€1,600
€2,600
€3,600
€4,400
€131,540
€219,690
€283,840
€335,160
Total annual wage costs Rent 7 m² per employee (per m² per year) Workshop 70 m² (per m² per year)
€180 €70
Total annual rent Overheads (per employee per year) Annual fixed operating costs
€400
5.3. Service evaluation and sensitivity analysis Depreciation is applied to the service investment under all scenarios for two different periods (7 or 5 years). In the case of depreciation over 5 years, the annual investment part represents 30 to 34% of the costs (evaluated on a constant annual basis), variable operating costs 35 to 40% and fixed operating costs 35 to 26%. The latter diminish as the size of the fleet increases. As expected, if depreciation is over 7 years, the proportion of annual investment falls to 26 to 30% of total costs (compared with 30 to 34%). However, the distribution between variable and fixed operating costs remains the same. So fixed costs account for 50% of operating costs in the 50 EV scenario, but only 39% in the 200 EV scenario. Table 5 Results of the scheme depending on fleet size and depreciation period Scenarios
50 EV
100 EV
150 EV
200 EV
Annual revenues
€402,000
€804,000
€1,206,000
€1,608,000
Annual variable operating costs
€129,500 €131,540
€259,000 €219,690
€388,500 €283,840
€518,000 €335,160
Annual fixed operating costs Annual operating balance
€140,960
€325,310
€533,660
€754,840
Annual investment depreciated (over 5 years)
€110,600
€221,200
€331,800
€442,400
Annual net profit depreciated (over 5 years)
€30,360
€104,110
€201,860
€312,440
Annual investment depreciated (over 7 years)
€93,286
€186,571
€279,857
€373,143
Annual net profit depreciated (over 7 years)
€47,674
€138,739
€253,803
€381,697
We now discuss the level of risk based on the cost of financing. We vary the cost of financing in a range from 2% to 15%, with a midway cost of 5% then 8%. We consider that the EV are always resold after 5 or 7 years. The results give a positive net updated value in all 8 scenarios (4 fleets, 2 depreciation periods) if the cost of financing is 8% or less. The 50 EV scenario with a financing cost of 12 or 15% would not be viable, regardless of the depreciation period. Similarly, the 100 EV scenario with a financing cost of 15% and a depreciation period of 5 years would not be advisable.
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Fig. 3. Analysis of sensitivity to the scheme’s financing cost
5.4. Variation in the proposed package and fine-tuning of demand estimate This scheme and its business model remain theoretical. First of all, our estimate of the potential demand needs to be fine-tuned. In fact, shared mobility services often seem to fail because of a mismatch between supply and demand. Work is still underway on this, with interviews planned with different players in the sector, including EuroDisney SCA and Villages Nature. Then we could envisage other commercial proposals: price packages for one-day or two-day rental or else monthly rental to the hotels. In this case, the hotels could decide to sub-rent the EV to their guests, as part of a nightly room rate in combination with other services, or to offer it to their guests as a free service. Other possibilities would be regional discovery tours, including both cultural and gastronomic experiences, via GPS programming and agreements with restaurants, producers, etc. We could also adjust the cost structure, either by cutting the variable costs, which brings better returns, or by reducing investment. We start from the assumption that a service like this will create value for the hotels, which might therefore offer free parking. With depreciation over 5 years, the share of variable costs would fall by 6 points. We could also imagine a 10% manufacturer discount for grouped purchases of EV. In this case, the share of investment would fall by 3 points. In order to limit the level of risk, it is also possible to envisage rolling out the scheme in successive phases. In this way, the investment could be staged and the fleet upgraded gradually. 6. Conclusion We propose an EV sharing scheme in order to encourage families visiting Disneyland Paris to lengthen their stay and to discover the region’s major tourist sites, combined with the comfort and the intimacy of the private vehicle. The theoretical business model we construct consists of several scenarios, with different numbers of EV and different depreciation periods. Investment costs represent 26 to 34% of the total costs and variable costs account for 50 to 62% of operating costs. The project can be undertaken regardless of fleet size, provided that its financing cost is 8% or less. If the cost of financing is higher, the size of the fleet will need to be increased. This niche market appears to be profitable. Nevertheless, its remains sensitive to a number of factors that generally affect the development of electromobility services (Leurent et al, 2015), such as: a still undeveloped second-hand market; variation in electricity price policies; the possibility of adding indirect revenues; or else the granting of subsidies that are not limited to environmental externalities but are designed as much to support the industry and to invest in local scale “territorial branding”.
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In fact, the development of such a service raises questions about how the value created is shared between the different actors, a process that often generates conflict. Cohen and Kietzmann (2014) identify three possible situations, which depend on the approach taken by public authorities: either it is totally private (car sharing between individuals), or it is totally public (first experiments with self-service bicycles), or there is sharing “on merit” with a varying degree of public involvement (provision of streetside parking spaces), which is their recommended solution. The proposed scheme could therefore contribute to the tourism cluster established since 2011 around Disneyland Park (Fabry, 2013), which aims to encourage all the actors to become stakeholders in the territorial plan and to stop hiding behind Disney, the major player on the site. The challenge is to maintain the attractiveness of the destination, while at the same time generating additional local tourist activity. The value generated by such a scheme could be shared on a merit basis: the hotels would keep their guests for longer, the top tourist sites located within a radius of 50 to 70 km from Disney would win new visitors, the local authority would gain from more sustainable mobility and the enhancement of its image, etc. Acknowledgements This research was partly financed by the Renault Group, which we thank for its support. We would also like to thank the students of the class of 2014-2015 in the Transport and Sustainable Mobility Masters programme at Fondation Renault ParisTech, as well as our colleagues Anne Aguiléra and Olivier Bonin for data collection and Virginie Boutueil, Nathalie Fabry and Sylvain Zeghni for the bibliographical analysis. References 6t-bureau de recherche, 2013. Enquête Nationale sur l’Autopartage : l’autopartage comme déclencheur d’une mobilité alternative à la voiture particulière. Paris, 82p. 6t-bureau de recherche, 2014. ENA.3 – Enquête sur l’autopartage en trace directe (le cas d’Autolib’ Paris). L’autopartage en trace directe : quelle alternative à la voiture particulière ? Paris, 249p. Autolib’ Métropole, 2016. Rapport d’activités 2015. Autolib’ Métropole, Paris, 24p. Banister, D., 2008. The sustainable mobility paradigm. Transport Policy 15, 73–80. Bernini, J.-M., 2015. Transport et mobilité durable. Conférence les Jeudis du cluster tourisme, Marne-la-Vallée. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz0HQAguTik Accessed 16 Feb 2016. Ceschin, F., Vezzoli, C., 2010. The role of public policy in stimulating radical environmental impact reduction in the automotive sector: the need to focus on product-service system innovation. International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management 10, 321–341. Cohen B., Kietzmann J., 2014, Ride On! Mobility Business Models for the Sharing Economy, Organization & Environment 27:3, 279–296. CRT Paris Ile-de-France, 2015. Bilan de l’activité touristique de l’année 2015. Comité régional du tourisme, 24p. Délégation interministérielle au projet Euro Disneyland en France, EPAFRANCE, 2012. Analyse des contributions économiques et sociales de Disneyland – Paris bilan des 20 années 1992 – 2011, 44p. DGE, 2015. Mémento du Tourisme Edition 2015. Direction Générale des Entreprises, Ministère de l'Économie, de l'Industrie et du Numérique, Paris, 148p. Disneyland Paris, 2015a.Chiffres clés. http://disneylandparis-news.com/chiffres-cles/ Accessed 25 Fev 2016. Disneyland Paris, 2015b. La magie en chiffres. http://corporate.disneylandparis.fr/notre-societe/la-magie-en-chiffres/index.xhtml Accessed 25 Feb 2016. Electric Coalition, 2013. Drive Electric Orlando, a first-of-its-kind electric car rental initiative, launched on September 5th, 2013. http://www.electrificationcoalition.org/DEOLaunch Accessed 26 Feb 2016. Euro Disney SCA, 2014. Document de Référence déposé auprès de l’Autorité des marchés financiers, Paris, 224p. http://disneylandparisnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/fr-reference-document-2014.pdf Accessed 25 Fev 2016. Fabry N., Zeghni S., 2016. Personal communication. 24 Feb 2016, Université Paris-Est, Serry. Fabry N., 2013. Cluster de tourisme et ancrage territorial : l’expérience du « Cluster tourisme de Val d’Europe ». Mondes du Tourisme, Recherche et Tourisme, 42-54. Fagnant D., Kockelman K., 2014. The travel and environmental implications of shared autonomous vehicles, using agent-based model scenarios. Transportation Research Part C 40, 1–13. Firnkorn J., Müller M., 2015. Free-floating electric car sharing-fleets in smart cities: The dawning of a post-private car era in urban environments? Environmental Science & Policy 45, 30-40. Gössling S., Peeters P., Ceron J.-P., Dubois, G., Patterson, T., Richardson R., 2005. The eco-efficiency of tourism. Ecological Economics 54, 417– 434. INSEE, 2011. Recensement général de la population. Institut National des Statistiques et des Etudes Economiques.
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Leurent F., Sadeghian S., Pradel B., Boutueil,V., Lesteven G., 2016. Mobilité électrique et innovations de services : une prospection de modèles d’affaires. Actes des Rencontres de la Mobilité Intelligente ATEC ITS, Montrouge, 11p. Leurent F., Boutueil V., Alawi B., Berrada J., Sadeghian S., Aguiléra A., Bonin O., 2015, Rapport de synthèse de la troisième phase du contrat REGIENOV II (LVMT-IMD), LVMT, Champs-sur-Marne, 14p. Le Vine S., Polak J., 2015. Introduction to special issue: new directions in shared-mobility research. Transportation 42, 407–411. Le Vine S., Lee-Gosselin M., Sivakumar A., Polak J., 2014. A new approach to predict the market and impacts of round-trip and point-to-point carsharing systems: Case study of London. Transportation Research Part D 32, 218–229. Martin E., Shaheen S., 2011. Greenhouse gas emission impacts of carsharing in North America. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems 12:4, 1074–1086. Nakamura H., Naoya A., 2016. Tourist decisions in renting various personal travel modes: A case study in Kitakyushu City, Japan, Tourism Management 55, 85-93. Sadeghian S., 2013. Développer la mobilité électrique : des projets d'acteurs au projet de territoire. Thèse de doctorat, Université Paris-Est, 447p. Shaheen S., Cohen A., 2013. Carsharing and Personal Vehicle Services: Worldwide Market Developments and Emerging Trends, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 7:1, 5-34. Shaheen S., Mallery M., Kingsley K., 2012. Personal vehicle sharing services in North America. Research in Transportation Business & Management 3, 71–81. Simon R., 2013. L’expérience de La Poste. TEC 220, 31-33. Sobreira A., 2016. Personal communication. 25 Feb 2016, EPA Marne, Noisiel. Windisch E., 2013, Driving Electric? A financial analysis of electric vehicle policies in France, Thèse de doctorat, Université Paris-Est, 375p. Zakaria R., 2015. Optimization of the car relocation operations in one-way carsharing systems. Thèse de doctorat, Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard, 161p.
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International Scientific Conference on Mobility and Transport Transforming Urban Mobility, mobil.TUM 2016, 6-7 June 2016, Munich, Germany
Electromobility for tourists: testing business models in the Paris region Gaele Lesteven*, Fabien Leurent Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, LVMT, Marne-la-Vallée, France
Abstract
Electric vehicles (EV) bring benefits for the urban environment but represent an additional cost for households. That is why the spread of electromobility starts with niche markets appropriate to their territorial context. On this principle, we design a business model for an EV sharing scheme based on assumptions about sites attractive to tourists to the technical means of production passing by the estimate of potential demand. To address the challenge of profitability, several scenarios are tested, with different fleet sizes and financing costs. In the model, investment costs represent 26 to 34% of total costs and variable costs account for 50 to 62% of operating costs. The project can be undertaken regardless of fleet size, provided that its financing cost is 8% or less. It raises questions about the distribution of the value generated. © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-reviewunder under responsibility oforganizing the organizing committee of mobil.TUM Peer-review responsibility of the committee of mobil.TUM 2016. 2016. Keywords: electric vehicle; car sharing; business model; Paris region, Disneyland, tourism
1. Introduction Electromobility – the use of electric vehicles (EV) – brings benefits for the urban environment (less noise and pollution), but represents an additional purchase cost for users. For purely electric vehicles, battery capacity limits the range between recharges, which also contributes to restricting household demand. In France, around 30% of households might be interested in buying an EV, because of all the measures introduced in favour of electric vehicles
* Corresponding author. Tel: 33 (0)1 81 66 88 67 E-mail address: [email protected]
2352-1465 © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of mobil.TUM 2016. doi:10.1016/j.trpro.2016.12.077
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(Windish, 2013). These households are motorised, have access to private parking and can continue to meet their mobility needs while replacing one of their internal combustion vehicles with an EV. The purchase of an EV is therefore primarily motivated by financial advantage, since the total costs of owning an EV are lower than for an internal combustion vehicle. The environmental benefit, for its part, is indirectly supported through the purchase bonus awarded by the government. Nonetheless, such potential buyers remain a small proportion of French households, and it is possible that some of them prefer the second-hand market which represents almost 60% of vehicles sold in France today. That is why the spread of electromobility begins with niche markets, mainly utility vehicles in urban conditions and shared vehicle fleets for companies. In both these cases, the instigator is a business: it decides to acquire EV as one of the factors in the profitability of its activity. We looked for other niche markets where EV ownership could be worthwhile in introducing a specific service, appropriate to a given scale: the home, the neighbourhood, a road axis or the whole conurbation. We identified a dozen niches (Leurent et al, 2016). From among them, we propose to develop an EV sharing scheme aimed at tourists visiting Disneyland Paris, Europe’s leading tourist hub. We construct a theoretical business model and seek to evaluate its viability. This textbook case raises questions about how including tourists in the scope of transforming urban mobility, the profitability of new mobility services and the distribution of the value generated between public and private actors. Section 2 explores the development of shared mobility services, which are vectors of electromobility. Section 3 describes the research terrain, i.e. the new town of Marne-la-Vallée, which is home to the Disneyland Paris theme park, in the east of the Paris region. Section 4 presents a shared mobility service targeting families visiting Disneyland Paris. Section 5 develops the business model of the service. Section 6 reaches conclusions about the viability of such a service in terms of profitability, value sharing and territorial embeddedness. 2. Shared mobility services and electromobility 2.1. The impacts of electric on mobility The spread of electromobility brings about changes in the production of mobility. To begin with, electric technology is one of the instruments for producing sustainable mobility (Banister, 2008), by limiting local pollutant emissions and reducing noise pollution from vehicles. The spread of electric vehicles also encourages carmakers to adjust their economic model: while they continue to sell the vehicle, they rent the battery. This brings a shift from product-based business models to service-based business models (Ceschin and Vezzoli, 2010). Carmakers become service providers, some of them – such as Daimler with its Car2Go scheme or Renault with TwizyWay – to the point of providing car sharing services (see 3.3). With this phenomenon, there is a rapprochement with the role of traditional car hire firms, which are themselves increasingly becoming car share operators (Shaheen and Cohen, 2013). Finally, EV use has a positive effect on the behaviour of motorists who, once they have tasted electric, are reluctant to return to internal combustion. In France, the company La Poste has equipped its postal delivery staff with 5,000 Renault Kangoo ZE. The staff appreciate the ease of driving an EV (smooth acceleration, no gearbox, no noise) and no longer want to go back to internal combustion (Simon, 2013). Another survey asked users of the Car2Go car sharing scheme in Ulm in Germany about their use of the electric and internal combustion vehicles provided under the scheme. The results show that EV users in car sharing schemes are more inclined to dispose of their own car than those who use an internal combustion vehicle for car sharing (Firnkorn and Müller, 2015). 2.2. Increasing diversity of shared mobility services Shared mobility is part of a wider movement – the shared economy – that relies in part on the extensive use of digital technologies. Still only a niche market a decade ago, shared mobility is now embodied in a multitude of services around the world, albeit not yet defined. In fact, there is as yet no consensus in the scientific literature over the boundaries of shared mobility, with some encompassing traditional car rental and others emphasising the importance of digital applications (Le Vine and Polak, 2015). Nevertheless, a common trend is apparent towards a gradual
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separation between car ownership and car use. Likewise, the choice to equip shared mobility services with EV would favour positive externalities (Cohen and Kietzmann, 2014). Shared mobility services can be divided into a number of business models, which flourish to a greater or lesser degree, depending on operating methods (ranging from weekly car rental to hourly car sharing), geographical area, target demographic, impact on mobility behaviour and on the environment. The models fall into four main categories (Shaheen and Cohen, 2013). The most widespread and also the oldest service is round-trip car sharing: the user subscribes to the scheme then hires a vehicle by the hour or by the day. The vehicle is collected from a given pickup point and dropped off at the same point. Round-trip car sharing is often perceived as a complement to public transport (Le Vine et al, 2014; 6t, 2013). It leads to a reduction in individual car use and mileage, and therefore diminishes greenhouse gas emissions (Martin and Shaheen, 2011). A more recent development is one-way car sharing: the user hires a vehicle at one pickup point and drops it off at another (station-based car sharing). In some cases, there are no stations at all: users find the vehicle by GPS on smartphone and park it where they want (free-floating car sharing). The next step will be for these vehicles to become autonomous (Fagnant and Kockelman, 2014). Often located in dense urban areas, one-way car sharing is primarily used for short journeys, for both leisure and commuting purposes. It would appear more to be a substitute for public transport than a complement (Le Vine et al, 2014; 6t, 2014). Alongside the round-trip and one-way systems, another type of developing scheme is peer-to-peer car sharing or personal vehicle sharing. The business model here is different, since in this case private individuals occasionally rent their vehicles to other private individuals, often via online brokering platforms. There is as yet little information about the mobility practices and environmental impact associated with this type of car sharing (Shaheen et al, 2012). Since it pertains to privately owned vehicles, it is less likely to include electric vehicles than the other types. Finally, car sharing for tourists is an emerging form of car sharing, initiated with the GreenCar experiments in Hawaii (Shaheen and Cohen, 2013). Launched in 2011 but since closed, the GreenCar scheme offered hotel customers EV to rent by the hour or by the day. A similar scheme was developed in 2013 in Orlando, Florida, near the main attractions (Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, SeaWorld Marine Park). Called Drive Electric Orlando, this scheme arose from a partnership between a US pro-electric electric vehicle group, the Electrification coalition, the car rental firm Rent-a-Car and Orlando’s main hotels and theme parks. Its target market is tourists on family visits to Orlando or on business trips. The objective is to spread the use of EV by providing the possibility of trying them out for several days (Electric Coalition, 2013). This is also the stated goal in the tourist town of Kitakyushu in Japan, where an association offers visitors EV, electric scooters and electric bicycles to rent (Nakamura and Abe, 2016). This educational objective goes hand-in-hand with the promotion of sustainable tourism (Gössling et al, 2005). Our work focuses on this latter form of car sharing, which has so far received little scholarly attention, based on a theoretical study on an EV sharing scheme for tourists visiting Disneyland Paris. 3. Potential of tourist electromobility in the Paris region 3.1. Presentation of the research territory The Paris region (or Île-de-France) is France’s most populous region, with 11.8 million inhabitants, almost 20% of the population of Metropolitan France, in an area of 12,012 square kilometres, representing only 2% of the metropolitan territory (INSEE, 2011). As illustrated in the map below, the region consists of Paris City, the inner suburbs and the outer suburbs. Situated east of Paris, Marne-la-Vallée is the largest and most populous of the five new towns built in the 1960s. Extending some 20 km along the Marne Valley, it houses almost 300,000 inhabitants in an area 1.5 times larger than the city of Paris. The eastern part of the new town is home to the Disneyland theme park, and more generally to the tourist infrastructure developed since Disney’s arrival in 1987. It has good road and rail provision: it is linked to Paris by the A4 motorway and to Charles de Gaulle Airport by the A104 motorway. It also has two RER (regional railway) stations and a TGV (high-speed train) station.
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Fig. 1. Layout of the Paris region, the new towns and Disneyland Paris
3.2. Disneyland Paris: a major tourist catchment zone in the Paris region The US’s Walt Disney Company set up in France in 1987 and opened Disneyland Paris in 1992. In the space of almost 25 years, Disney has created a major tourist destination from scratch, Europe’s leading tourist destination with almost 15 million visits a year (Fabry, 2013). The subsidiary Euro Disney SCA operates a complex consisting of two theme parks (Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios, with a third on the drawing board), a fleet of five hotels (5,800 rooms), a campsite and a golf course. Around the complex, other hotels have sprung up, along with the shopping centre, which every year attracts as many visitors as Disney, and the Vallée Village outlet which brings in almost 7 million annual visitors. Disney’s choice of location is explained by its situation at the centre of Europe and its international accessibility. According to data from an internal survey conducted in 2014 within the Euro Disney SCA Group (2014), 45% of visitors to Disneyland Paris came by public transport, 31% of them by plane or by train. This area is now moving towards the development of sustainable tourism through Villages Nature, with its focus on the ecotourism market. Still under construction, this holiday village, financed by Disney and Pierre et Vacances, will open in 2017. It is expected to attract 2 million visitors a year by 2020. Disneyland Park represents a major tourist catchment. 31% of the 46 million tourists visiting the Paris region each year come to the Park. The Park welcomes 38% of international tourists to Paris region and 9% of those coming to France (DGE, 2015; CRT Paris Île-de-France, 2015). International tourists account for more than 50% of visitors to the Park (Disneyland Paris, 2015b). 3.3. Experiences in EV sharing in the Paris region There is no EV sharing scheme aimed at tourists in the Paris region, although some transport operators are considering it (Bernini, 2015). There are, however, several EV sharing services for residents.
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The best known is the Autolib’ one-way scheme. Launched in December 2009, it is run by the firm Autolib’, a subsidiary of the Bolloré Group, under a public service licence granted by the public-private Autolib’ structure, which consists of the city of Paris and 85 other municipalities in the Paris region. There are 1,042 stations, offering 3,698 EV for rent. An Autolib’ car is hired on average 4.7 times a weekday. The average journey is 9.3 km. The car runs on average 3 hours 10 minutes and travels 44 km a day (Autolib’ Métropole, 2016). After four years of operation, Autolib’ has almost reached breakeven. TwizyWay was another EV sharing scheme, present in the Paris region from 2011 to 2014. This free-floating oneway service was based around a fleet of 50 Twizy, two-seater electric quadbikes produced by Renault. Launched by the carmaker in December 2011, the service operated across several municipalities in the new town of Saint-Quentinen-Yvelines, west of Paris. In economic terms, the scheme fell far short of viability. Although some 1% of the inhabitants of the coverage zone were members, the vehicles were used on average only 17 minutes a day and for a single trip. The scheme was finally suspended in July 2014. TwizyWay should be understood more as a showcase for the manufacturer than as a genuine service for residents (Shadeghian, 2013). Finally, since 2014, the operator Mopeasy has been providing an electric car sharing service across the new town of Marne-la-Vallée. In 2011, the local authorities decided to establish a network of streetside charging terminals in order to encourage electromobility in their territory. The car sharing service is intended as an adjunct to this project. A round-trip system was chosen, since it is aimed at residents for their local journeys. The goal is to limit household car ownership, since bus provision in the new town is primarily designed to link with the regional rail stations. The project is 60% subsidised (Sobreira, 2016). The first stations were opened in 2014. Today, there are 17 stations in operation, offering 14 EV to rent, mainly Renault Zoé ZE. Ultimately, 80 stations are planned within the new town, with a fleet of 50 EV. Up to now, the interaction between shared mobility services and electromobility in the Paris region has produced three business models which, though different, all target local residents: x Autolib’, a car sharing service available in dense urban areas, equipped with EV specially designed for this scheme, almost coming into profit after four years of operation; x TwizyWay, an industrial showcase for the Twizy vehicle, located in the periurban area near Renault’s research centre, which proved unviable and closed after three years of operation; x Mopeasy, a highly subsidised periurban electric recharging service, in operation for a year and a half and associated with a round-trip car sharing scheme based around the Renault Zoé ZE. We propose to develop a fourth business model, no longer designed for residents but primarily for tourists. 4. Proposal of an “Autodisney” service 4.1. Key determinants for an EV sharing scheme The scheme that we propose is inspired by what has been done in Orlando, Florida. Its target market is tourists visiting Disneyland Park. The idea is to encourage non-motorised families to stay longer and to visit other major tourist attractions in the Paris region that are difficult to access by public transport from the Park, but can be reached by an EV hired at their hotel. To sum up, the key determinants of this scheme are: - The promotion of the Park and its surroundings as a tourist spot for longer stays; - The multisite potential of the Paris region within EV’s travel range (50 to 70 km one way, with absence of charging terminals at destination); - The opportunity to travel by car, which offers comfort and intimacy at a good price, compared to taxi and public transport.
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4.2. Market study: accommodation for longer stays Tourists have the option of staying in hotels in Disneyland Park, but also in tourist residences outside the Park and, from 2017, in the Villages Nature holiday village. According to the 20-year report on Disneyland Park (2012), 61% of visitors spent at least 2 days in the Park and all the foreign visitors spent 2 days, or even, in 27% of cases, 3 days. Half the visitors stayed in paying accommodation, 24.2% of them in the Park’s hotels, and 5% in partner accommodation. In 2011, the Park provides accommodation for 2.37 million people. The tourists who stay in the Park’s hotels are mainly families with children, as well as some business customers, since certain hotels provide conference facilities. The objective of the Villages Nature holiday village is to keep visitors for 4 to 5 night. The package is addressed to a clientele that is educated and reasonably well-off, mainly from Northern Europe. Finally, a proportion of visitors stay in apartment-hotels outside the Park, and could easily extend their stay. 4.3. Market study: tourist attractions within EV’s travel range As shown on figure 2 and table 1, the main tourist sites of the Paris region, including Versailles Castle, are within a radius of 70 km of Disneyland Paris.
Fig. 2. The main tourist sites within a radius of 70 km of Disneyland Paris
According to the Park’s data (Disneyland Paris, 2015a), one third of foreign visitors also visit the city of Paris which is easily accessible by regional train (RER). However, only 3 to 5% of visitors staying in the Park go outside it to visit tourist sites other than those in Paris city (Fabry and Zeghni, 2016). When they do so, their first destination is Parc des Félins, a zoo dedicated to the feline family, which has very poor public transport provision. This animal park aims to act as a complement to Disneyland, by evoking the world of the Lion King. Next, they may visit the Great War Museum in Meaux, which has made a special advertising effort to attract Disney customers, for example with the information that Walt Disney had been an ambulance driver in Paris during the First World War. Finally, foreign tourists apparently enjoy the market in Lagny-sur-Marne, a picturesque village on the Marne River, some 10 km away. It may be that some of the educated and well-off tourists staying at Villages Nature would wish to explore more cultural destinations, such as the castles of Fontainebleau or Vaux-le-Vicomte, the painters’ circle in Barbizon or the mediaeval citadel of Provins.
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Visits in 2014
Distance by road
14,200,000
0 km
In the Paris region (outside Paris city) Versailles Castle
7,702,136
67 km
Fontainebleau Castle
517,000
67 km
Parc des Félins zoo
295,000
30 km
Vaux-le-Vicomte Castle
290,000
45 km
Saint-Denis Basilica
168,496
56 km
Museum of the Great War in Meaux
133,333
31 km
Vincennes Castle
129,662
35 km
In the city of Paris
45 km
Louvre Museum
9,134,612
Eiffel Tower
7,097,302
Orsay Museum
3,480,609
Zoological Park
1,300,000 Sources: CRT Paris, 2015
4.4. Estimate of potential demand According to the Park’s data (Disneyland Paris, 2015a), the 5,800 rooms have 75.4% occupancy. We assume that: x The 5,800 rooms are occupied 75.4% for 365 nights a year. There are 2 visitors per room per night. We obtain 3,2 million visitor.nights a year. x 5 to 15% of them would be ready to stay for one week and, of these, 10 to 30% would be interested in an EV rental service. We obtain 15,900 to 143,700 visitor.nights a year. x Visitors come primarily in families. So about 3,900 to 35,900 four-person families would be interested in the service each year. This means that 75 to 690 families could rent an EV each week. In addition, accommodation outside Disneyland Park represents the equivalent of some 30% of the Park’s hotel capacity. With an occupancy rate of 65% and 1.5 people on average per room per night, this makes around 200,000 families a year. Now these families often stay in apartment-hotels. It is likely that at least 15 to 30% of them would be more inclined to extend their stay. This adds up to a further 60 to 340 families interested in the service. The potential demand for the service is thus estimated at 135 to 1,030 families a week. 5. Presentation of the business model We provide several scenarios, based on the number of EV operating: a scenario with 50 EV, a scenario with 100 EV, a scenario with 150 EV and a scenario with 200 EV. In light of the demand estimate, the final scenario seems to present the maximum volume of EV that can be realistically envisaged for such a service in the area. 5.1. Sales and price packages We assume that the rental charge for the EV will be €250 a week, which matches the price proposed for the Electric Car Orlando scheme. We estimate that each EV will be rented for around 30 weeks a year. This estimate stands between traditional rental where a vehicle is on-hire for around 80% of the time (24 days out of 30) and standard carshare, where a vehicle is used 6 to 9 hours a day, i.e. 25 to 45% of the time (Shaheen et Cohen, 2013). We propose
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to increase revenues by setting up a system of prepaid entry tickets, which would bring in around €18 per rental. The estimated revenue par family per week is €268. 5.2. Cost structure Investment costs We propose to buy Renault Zoé ZE cars at €16,000 each, including the €6,000 ecological bonus provided by the government. We estimate a resale value of €6,000 per EV after 5 years, or €4,000 after 7 years. In our business model, the EV are recharged overnight in the hotel car park, so one charging terminal is required for each EV. These are slowcharge terminals for private car parks, and therefore cheap (€1,000 per terminal). Finally, the jockeys responsible for dispatching the EV to the different car parks in response to demand and for maintaining them, are equipped with folding electric scooters at €1,500 each (Zakaria, 2015). We allow one scooter for 25 EV. Table 2 Investment costs, adjusted to the size of the fleet Scenarios EV price depreciated over 5 years (€10,000/unit)
50 EV €500,000
100 EV €1,000,000
150 EV €1,500,000
200 EV €2,000,000
EV price depreciated over 7 years (€12,000/unit)
€600,000
€1,200,000
€1,800,000
€2,400,000
€50,000
€100,000
€150,000
€200,000
2
4
6
8
€3,000
€6,000
€9,000
€12,000
Total investment depreciated (over 5 years)
€553,000
€1,106,000
€1,659,000
€2,212,000
Annual investment depreciated (over 5 years)
€110,600
€221,200
€331,800
€442,400
Total investment depreciated (over 7 years)
€653,000
€1,306,000
€1,959,000
€2,612,000
€93,286
€186,571
€279,857
€373,143
Slow-charge terminal price (€1,000/unit) Numbers of folding scooters (0,4/EV) Folding scooter price (€1,500/unit)
Annual investment depreciated (over 7 years)
Operation – variable costs The so-called variable operating costs are defined as the operating costs for an EV unit. They are calculated per year (see Table 3). We include the hire of the battery provided by Renault at €49 per month (€588), together with the cost of energy (€200), insurance (€400), telecommunications (€200), vehicle maintenance/service (€600) and parking (€600). Our estimate for the maintenance and energy costs of the scooters is €50 per year. Table 3 Variables operating costs, adjusted to the size of the fleet Scenarios Battery rental (€588/EV/year)
50 EV €29,400
100 EV €58,800
150 EV €88,200
Energy (€200/EV/year)
€10,000
€20,000
€30,000
€40,000
Insurance (€400/EV/year)
€20,000
€40,000
€60,000
€80,000
Telecommunications (€200/EV/year)
€10,000
€20,000
€30,000
€40,000
Vehicle maintenance/service (€600/EV/year)
€30,000
€60,000
€90,000
€120,000
Parking (€600/EV/year)
€30,000
€60,000
€90,000
€120,000
€100
€200
€300
€400
€129,500
€259,000
€388,500
€518,000
Maintenance/energy costs of the scooters (€50/scooter/year) Annual variable operating costs
200 EV €117,600
Operation – fixed costs The so-called fixed operating costs (see Table 4) comprise personnel costs, rent for the office and maintenance workshop, together with overheads.
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Gaele Lesteven and Fabien Leurent / Transportation Research Procedia 19 (2016) 164 – 175 Table 4 Fixed operating costs, adjusted to the size of the fleet Scenarios
50 EV
Minimum wage + charges (MWC) per month
100 EV
150 EV
200 EV 1
€2000
Director (MWC)
3
0.5
1
1
Secretary/support function (MWC)
1
0.5
0.5
1
1
Ambassador (MWC)
1
3
5
7
9 11
Total employees
4
6.5
9
Total minimum wage + charges
5
8.5
11
13
€120,000
€204,000
€264,000
€312,000
€9,940
€13,090
€16,240
€18,760
€1,600
€2,600
€3,600
€4,400
€131,540
€219,690
€283,840
€335,160
Total annual wage costs Rent 7 m² per employee (per m² per year) Workshop 70 m² (per m² per year)
€180 €70
Total annual rent Overheads (per employee per year) Annual fixed operating costs
€400
5.3. Service evaluation and sensitivity analysis Depreciation is applied to the service investment under all scenarios for two different periods (7 or 5 years). In the case of depreciation over 5 years, the annual investment part represents 30 to 34% of the costs (evaluated on a constant annual basis), variable operating costs 35 to 40% and fixed operating costs 35 to 26%. The latter diminish as the size of the fleet increases. As expected, if depreciation is over 7 years, the proportion of annual investment falls to 26 to 30% of total costs (compared with 30 to 34%). However, the distribution between variable and fixed operating costs remains the same. So fixed costs account for 50% of operating costs in the 50 EV scenario, but only 39% in the 200 EV scenario. Table 5 Results of the scheme depending on fleet size and depreciation period Scenarios
50 EV
100 EV
150 EV
200 EV
Annual revenues
€402,000
€804,000
€1,206,000
€1,608,000
Annual variable operating costs
€129,500 €131,540
€259,000 €219,690
€388,500 €283,840
€518,000 €335,160
Annual fixed operating costs Annual operating balance
€140,960
€325,310
€533,660
€754,840
Annual investment depreciated (over 5 years)
€110,600
€221,200
€331,800
€442,400
Annual net profit depreciated (over 5 years)
€30,360
€104,110
€201,860
€312,440
Annual investment depreciated (over 7 years)
€93,286
€186,571
€279,857
€373,143
Annual net profit depreciated (over 7 years)
€47,674
€138,739
€253,803
€381,697
We now discuss the level of risk based on the cost of financing. We vary the cost of financing in a range from 2% to 15%, with a midway cost of 5% then 8%. We consider that the EV are always resold after 5 or 7 years. The results give a positive net updated value in all 8 scenarios (4 fleets, 2 depreciation periods) if the cost of financing is 8% or less. The 50 EV scenario with a financing cost of 12 or 15% would not be viable, regardless of the depreciation period. Similarly, the 100 EV scenario with a financing cost of 15% and a depreciation period of 5 years would not be advisable.
Gaele Lesteven and Fabien Leurent / Transportation Research Procedia 19 (2016) 164 – 175
Fig. 3. Analysis of sensitivity to the scheme’s financing cost
5.4. Variation in the proposed package and fine-tuning of demand estimate This scheme and its business model remain theoretical. First of all, our estimate of the potential demand needs to be fine-tuned. In fact, shared mobility services often seem to fail because of a mismatch between supply and demand. Work is still underway on this, with interviews planned with different players in the sector, including EuroDisney SCA and Villages Nature. Then we could envisage other commercial proposals: price packages for one-day or two-day rental or else monthly rental to the hotels. In this case, the hotels could decide to sub-rent the EV to their guests, as part of a nightly room rate in combination with other services, or to offer it to their guests as a free service. Other possibilities would be regional discovery tours, including both cultural and gastronomic experiences, via GPS programming and agreements with restaurants, producers, etc. We could also adjust the cost structure, either by cutting the variable costs, which brings better returns, or by reducing investment. We start from the assumption that a service like this will create value for the hotels, which might therefore offer free parking. With depreciation over 5 years, the share of variable costs would fall by 6 points. We could also imagine a 10% manufacturer discount for grouped purchases of EV. In this case, the share of investment would fall by 3 points. In order to limit the level of risk, it is also possible to envisage rolling out the scheme in successive phases. In this way, the investment could be staged and the fleet upgraded gradually. 6. Conclusion We propose an EV sharing scheme in order to encourage families visiting Disneyland Paris to lengthen their stay and to discover the region’s major tourist sites, combined with the comfort and the intimacy of the private vehicle. The theoretical business model we construct consists of several scenarios, with different numbers of EV and different depreciation periods. Investment costs represent 26 to 34% of the total costs and variable costs account for 50 to 62% of operating costs. The project can be undertaken regardless of fleet size, provided that its financing cost is 8% or less. If the cost of financing is higher, the size of the fleet will need to be increased. This niche market appears to be profitable. Nevertheless, its remains sensitive to a number of factors that generally affect the development of electromobility services (Leurent et al, 2015), such as: a still undeveloped second-hand market; variation in electricity price policies; the possibility of adding indirect revenues; or else the granting of subsidies that are not limited to environmental externalities but are designed as much to support the industry and to invest in local scale “territorial branding”.
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In fact, the development of such a service raises questions about how the value created is shared between the different actors, a process that often generates conflict. Cohen and Kietzmann (2014) identify three possible situations, which depend on the approach taken by public authorities: either it is totally private (car sharing between individuals), or it is totally public (first experiments with self-service bicycles), or there is sharing “on merit” with a varying degree of public involvement (provision of streetside parking spaces), which is their recommended solution. The proposed scheme could therefore contribute to the tourism cluster established since 2011 around Disneyland Park (Fabry, 2013), which aims to encourage all the actors to become stakeholders in the territorial plan and to stop hiding behind Disney, the major player on the site. The challenge is to maintain the attractiveness of the destination, while at the same time generating additional local tourist activity. The value generated by such a scheme could be shared on a merit basis: the hotels would keep their guests for longer, the top tourist sites located within a radius of 50 to 70 km from Disney would win new visitors, the local authority would gain from more sustainable mobility and the enhancement of its image, etc. Acknowledgements This research was partly financed by the Renault Group, which we thank for its support. We would also like to thank the students of the class of 2014-2015 in the Transport and Sustainable Mobility Masters programme at Fondation Renault ParisTech, as well as our colleagues Anne Aguiléra and Olivier Bonin for data collection and Virginie Boutueil, Nathalie Fabry and Sylvain Zeghni for the bibliographical analysis. References 6t-bureau de recherche, 2013. Enquête Nationale sur l’Autopartage : l’autopartage comme déclencheur d’une mobilité alternative à la voiture particulière. Paris, 82p. 6t-bureau de recherche, 2014. ENA.3 – Enquête sur l’autopartage en trace directe (le cas d’Autolib’ Paris). L’autopartage en trace directe : quelle alternative à la voiture particulière ? Paris, 249p. Autolib’ Métropole, 2016. Rapport d’activités 2015. Autolib’ Métropole, Paris, 24p. Banister, D., 2008. The sustainable mobility paradigm. Transport Policy 15, 73–80. Bernini, J.-M., 2015. Transport et mobilité durable. Conférence les Jeudis du cluster tourisme, Marne-la-Vallée. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz0HQAguTik Accessed 16 Feb 2016. Ceschin, F., Vezzoli, C., 2010. The role of public policy in stimulating radical environmental impact reduction in the automotive sector: the need to focus on product-service system innovation. International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management 10, 321–341. Cohen B., Kietzmann J., 2014, Ride On! Mobility Business Models for the Sharing Economy, Organization & Environment 27:3, 279–296. CRT Paris Ile-de-France, 2015. Bilan de l’activité touristique de l’année 2015. Comité régional du tourisme, 24p. Délégation interministérielle au projet Euro Disneyland en France, EPAFRANCE, 2012. Analyse des contributions économiques et sociales de Disneyland – Paris bilan des 20 années 1992 – 2011, 44p. DGE, 2015. Mémento du Tourisme Edition 2015. Direction Générale des Entreprises, Ministère de l'Économie, de l'Industrie et du Numérique, Paris, 148p. Disneyland Paris, 2015a.Chiffres clés. http://disneylandparis-news.com/chiffres-cles/ Accessed 25 Fev 2016. Disneyland Paris, 2015b. La magie en chiffres. http://corporate.disneylandparis.fr/notre-societe/la-magie-en-chiffres/index.xhtml Accessed 25 Feb 2016. Electric Coalition, 2013. Drive Electric Orlando, a first-of-its-kind electric car rental initiative, launched on September 5th, 2013. http://www.electrificationcoalition.org/DEOLaunch Accessed 26 Feb 2016. Euro Disney SCA, 2014. Document de Référence déposé auprès de l’Autorité des marchés financiers, Paris, 224p. http://disneylandparisnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/fr-reference-document-2014.pdf Accessed 25 Fev 2016. Fabry N., Zeghni S., 2016. Personal communication. 24 Feb 2016, Université Paris-Est, Serry. Fabry N., 2013. Cluster de tourisme et ancrage territorial : l’expérience du « Cluster tourisme de Val d’Europe ». Mondes du Tourisme, Recherche et Tourisme, 42-54. Fagnant D., Kockelman K., 2014. The travel and environmental implications of shared autonomous vehicles, using agent-based model scenarios. Transportation Research Part C 40, 1–13. Firnkorn J., Müller M., 2015. Free-floating electric car sharing-fleets in smart cities: The dawning of a post-private car era in urban environments? Environmental Science & Policy 45, 30-40. Gössling S., Peeters P., Ceron J.-P., Dubois, G., Patterson, T., Richardson R., 2005. The eco-efficiency of tourism. Ecological Economics 54, 417– 434. INSEE, 2011. Recensement général de la population. Institut National des Statistiques et des Etudes Economiques.
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