IMPLEMENTING GREEN TRANSPORT PLANS
6 JULY 1999
ASTON UNIVERSITY
Community Car Share: Can it work? Will it work?
Dr G McL Hazel
Director of City Development
The City of Edinburgh Council
Synopsis
Once the substantial fixed costs of owning a car are paid, low marginal cost of use discourages choice of public transport modes for any journey. This paper examines a form of car use that can provide a bridge in the current gap between private and public transport systems.
In recent years, a new organisational approach to "Pay As You Drive Car Sharing" has evolved in the German speaking countries of Europe, particularly in response to increasing concern about the environmental impacts of car use. This organisational approach has grown out of informal initiatives in which car-owners let others use their car for some form of payment. Once more than a handful of people are involved in such an arrangement a much more professional approach is needed. This evolution of a new professionalism appears to be the basis of a rapidly growing new transport option.
The keys to success of such schemes appear likely to be the provision of a service of such a quality that car-owners will trust it enough to switch permanently to it and be prepared to depend on it; and of such a quality that it approaches as close as realistically possible to the convenience of personal car ownership.
In Edinburgh these principles have been adopted for a scheme called "City Car Club". Key decisions were, firstly to use a technology-based approach to booking vehicles and charging members rather than the paper systems in use in some of the German schemes; and secondly, to develop a partnership with a commercial operator in order to minimise cost and maximise the market orientation of the project.
The Edinburgh City Car Club was launched on 25 March 1999 with 8 cars and 30 members. Budget rent-a-car are the Council’s partners in the project. Plans to extend the scheme are already in hand.