User-led innovation processes: The development of professional car sharing by environmentally concerned citizens

Users play an essential role in the early development and diffusion phases of an innovation. Citizen groups may directly influence user-relevant characteristics of a new technology. They may actively engage in the social construction of quality characteristics, the perception of costs and the development of specific use forms and product images. By this they create 'technological niches' where essential learning processe for the further development of the technology may take place. This contribution may not be copied by more professional actors or, if so, only with considerable difficulty. This article illustrates these claims by referring to the development of a user-led innovation and diffusion process in the domain of individual transport: the emergence of organized car sharing in Switzerland. This innovation started in two neighbourhood-based experiments in the late 1980s. Today, it is run by a professional service enterprise, serves some 50,000 customers around the country and continues to expand at a considerable pace. The article highlights the specific contribution of users in the starting phase of organized car sharing and asks how the role of the users changed in the course of the market expansion process. It concludes by discussing the contributions of these experiences to the promotion of sustainable transport.