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Carsharing Grows

Northern Light

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I thought it noteworthy that carsharing is set to launch in Hamilton in the next month or so; and has just launched in Guelph.

Its growing it K-W and Cambridge, in fact its that provider that is launching the Hamilton Service.

http://www.peoplescar.org/index.html

Here in Toronto both carsharing services are expanding their fleets, Zipcar has grown by at least 25 cars this year; not sure how many Autoshare has added.

http://www.autoshare.com
http://www.zipcar.com

So that observation made; the question; will this growth continue?

If so, when will carsharing succeed in Mississauga? Will it be part of Markham Centre? And what of the inner-burbs?

Surely if K-W can make carsharing work, so can Scarborough or Mississauga.

Notes:

Autoshare tried out Port Credit a while back but left due to lack of interest.
Zipcar tried out UTM and left.

So far the most far flung points of operation are for the Toronto-based services are:

Zipcar: York U, Thorncliffe (new) and the Etobicoke Motel Strip redevelopment

Autoshare: Parkway Forest on Sheppard Ave @ 404 and the Airport Port area (new)

Discuss
 
I wonder if Discount and Budget have been paying much attention to this. It seems like it would be easy for them to test the market, given that they have such large fleets of vehicles at hand
 
Love love love car sharing. Sold my vehicle almost two years ago and it cut my transportation costs by 90%. Saved over $7 000/year - and that was with a 2000 Hyundai Accent with almost no repairs! I am in the core, however, and without proper density and walkable, interesting areas, I'm not sure how much it'll catch on. It's one thing to walk from Cabbagetown to Liberty Village, but entirely another to walk from Jane/Wilson to Jane/Bloor.
 
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One of these companies needs to cut a deal with GO....and the TTC. That would really make these services grow in popularity.
 
Interesting you should mention that.

Communauto, the big Carsharing service in Quebec...has done just that.

Communauto marks 15th anniversary with membership discounts

MONTREAL – With clowns, a drum troupe, free food and a display of its car fleet, the car-sharing group Communauto celebrated its 15th anniversary in front of the Mont Royal métro station Saturday morning.

Communauto also took the opportunity to announce a new discount for members who choose the bus pass plus annual communauto membership.

“It has been a great success since we introduced it in January 2008, and now we can improve the service even more,†said Communauto president Benoît Robert.

Starting next month, those who commit to buying a year’s worth of monthly passes will get access to the car-sharing service for an additional $5, down from $8. Those who pay the $500 annual fee for Communauto will get a $3 credit per month to take public transit.

Robert said the partnership has been incredibly successful for Communauto, which now has 1,900 of its 15,000 members who use the dual service.

Michel Labrecque, president of the Société de transport de Montréal, said the partnership has resulted in an increase as well.

“We can’t say it’s in the tens of thousands, but it is significant,†he said.

Robert said those who use Communauto increase their use of public transit by about 20 per cent.

“So it’s really a win-win partnership,†he said.

At 15 years, Robert said Communauto is North America’s oldest car-sharing service, and has grown exponentially from only three cars in 1994. He said the membership doubles about every three years.

He envisions a day in the future when Communauto will have 400,000 members as drivers start to change their habits.

“The car is a wonderful mode of transportation, but we don’t use it well,†he said.

“We try to convince people not to buy that second car, or not to buy a car at all. We hope eventually to be able to see the number of cars in Montreal plateau, and even be reduced.â€

jmagder@thegazette.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
 
I think that car sharing has reached a turning point in the past month. Lately I've found it much more difficult to book a Zipcar for immediate use, and it's not uncommon for all 15-20 cars in my typical pick up spots to be booked concurrently. You can forget about using Zipcar on the weekend unless you book days in advance.
 
^ Where they would actually be really useful is in the suburbs. If you are downtown, how much do you need a car anyway? Whereas, when you travel to the suburbs, you are much more likely to need a car. It would be ideal if one of these services could cut a deal with GO to set up shop at far-flung GO stations....particularly along Lakeshore. If you have a meeting in Oshawa, just GO it to there and Zipcar to your meeting. That would make the membership worthwhile for even those who have their own vehicle.
 
Tried

^ Where they would actually be really useful is in the suburbs. If you are downtown, how much do you need a car anyway? Whereas, when you travel to the suburbs, you are much more likely to need a car. It would be ideal if one of these services could cut a deal with GO to set up shop at far-flung GO stations....particularly along Lakeshore. If you have a meeting in Oshawa, just GO it to there and Zipcar to your meeting. That would make the membership worthwhile for even those who have their own vehicle.

I agree with you.

However, it should be said that Autoshare tried just this, putting cars at Port Credit GO station for about a year.

They eventually gave up as interest and use was too low.

Its my thought that the idea has great merit but needs to be done in a way that there is enough local interest around where the car is based to keep it in regular use.

In Port Credit, I think this might work once transit is more a part of every day life (GO Lakeshore at every 20min all day); and better Mississauga Transit service; but also they need like Toronto to have multiple locations in order to give themselves brand recognition. So Port Credit would have cars in the GO station but also on-street on Lakeshore and in a municipal lot.

Then you might get the desired uptake. But so far, the suburbs don't seem fully ready yet.

But then again, as I noted earlier, K-W and Cambridge and Guelph have all made a go of carsharing; so it should be possible to successfully market the service in places like Mississauga or Whitby as well.

Right now, I think the most sensible this is to grow along the subway lines, adding cars in the TTC lots at Downsview, Warden, Kennedy and Kipling. And then build from there.
 
^ Where they would actually be really useful is in the suburbs. If you are downtown, how much do you need a car anyway? Whereas, when you travel to the suburbs, you are much more likely to need a car. It would be ideal if one of these services could cut a deal with GO to set up shop at far-flung GO stations....particularly along Lakeshore. If you have a meeting in Oshawa, just GO it to there and Zipcar to your meeting. That would make the membership worthwhile for even those who have their own vehicle.

However, if a taxi would be cheaper in this situation, a taxi would be used. Unless you have to wait a couple of hours for a taxi to arrive to return to the GO station.
 
As someone who gave up their car because of Zipcar, I have found that combining modes of travel in the same trip (transit plus car sharing) is nowhere near as convenient as it sounds, and will do little to convince people to give up their cars. I suspect that the main reason why most car sharing lots are located along subway lines is because that's where the highest density is found - not because the subway itself brings people to the lots.

Car sharing becomes significantly more convenient the closer you live or work to the nearest lot. When the car is anything more than about a 5 minute walk from home, it sucks. You either have to walk a great distance to and from the car often in poor weather, or have to spend additional time taking public transit. This effectively eliminates the incentive to car share. I read in an article that Zipcar likes to average about 30-40 members per vehicle per location. There are very few places in the suburbs that can generate 30-40 members within a 5 minute walk of the nearest lot.
 
I look at it from a systems approach. Having a handful of cars in Port Credit won't do much. But one or two cars at every stop along Lakeshore would do a ton. And it's not just GO. I think they should partner with the TTC at every suburban station where the TTC has a lot.

While Zipcar is good, I think such an idea could only be implemented by a really local, Toronto based company that understand the GTA and understands where transit is heading in the near future. All the changes coming to GO and the various new TTC lines are set to change the way Torontonians think of transit. There's a real opportunity for a company that can think big to really do well here. Applying a fixed metric like 30-40 riders per car per location would fail to take into account the fact that when it comes to transportation the whole will always be greater than the sum of its parts.
 

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