Bibliometric analysis of carsharing and car rental research in the field of urban transportation and tourism transportation

Abstract

This paper reviews recent carsharing and car rental research bibliometrically. The study examines the evolution, structure, and boundaries of Web of Science-reviewed carsharing and car rental research. VOSviewer and SPSS 22 evaluated 204 vehicle rental and 574 carsharing articles in the WOS core collection. A gradual rise in car rental and carsharing studies is shown. China and the US produce the most carsharing and rental publications, respectively. China is the most productive country for carsharing publications and the United States for car rental publications. While China and the United States cooperate on carsharing, the United States cooperates with other countries (Canada, Germany, England, France, Australia, Portugal, Taiwan, Israel) on car rental. Co-occurrence network analysis shows that carsharing has five main themes: sharing economy, electric vehicles, transportation, shared mobility, and mobility as a service, while car rental research has four main themes: revenue management, transportation, quality service, and e-commerce. Carsharing and car rental studies share transportation themes. Carsharing subjects include transportation, engineering, business economics, environmental science ecology, science technology, and computer science, while car rental subjects include management, operations research, economics, transportation, business, transportation science technology, business finance, engineering, tourism, and environmental science. Car rental concerns vary by management, tourism, and finance. Tourism literature neglects car hire. This study thoroughly reviews 26 years of automobile rental and 22 years of carsharing literature. Thus, it can help academics comprehend automobile rental and carsharing studies and direct future research.