# So what carsharing services are available in your city/country?



## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

Car sharing

So what carsharing services are available in your city/country?

In Houston there is ZipCar which is also available in several other US cities.


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

Occasional Car is a car sharing service in the Denver area. There is also another car sharing service known as eGo in Boulder (a college town located northwest of Denver).


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## DanielFigFoz (Mar 10, 2007)

*United Kingdom*

The most famous car club in the UK is:



















(I wasn't expecting this picture to be so big, but it was a Fiat 500 with the above logo on the door)

*Portugal:*

I have no idea, but there's probably something in Lisbon


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

I joined Zipcar in the fall of 2007. (Actually, it was called Flexcar at the time; it merged with Zipcar a few months later. I don't think Zipcar had been present in Philadelphia until then.) Zipcar is a for-profit business; there's also a non-profit called PhillyCarShare.

I used Zipcar a lot for about a year, then (due to family circumstances) started using my Dad's car because I needed to be at my parents' every weekend, and ended up buying it. Zipcar's a lot more expensive (for the amount of driving I was doing) than owning a car in this neighborhood if the car's already paid for. And there are no mileage restrictions in owning my own car; road-tripping in a Zipcar could be prohibitive.

I maintain my Zipcar membership just in case my own car's in the shop at a time I need it - I believe I've used Zipcar once in the two-and-a-half years since I started using Dad's car.

Daniel, Zipcar does have a presence in London, which I look forward to being able to take advantage of some day.


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## zwanneman2 (Aug 26, 2009)

In the Netherlands a common car sharing service is greenwheels. I remember there used to be more but nowadays this is the only one in Groningen.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

There is also AutoDate in the Netherlands. I doubt if it's very popular, I rarely seem them. 

The Netherlands was traditionally a country with a relatively low automobile ownership, lower than many other European countries, however automobile ownership is on the rise, in the past 10 years the number of passenger cars increased by 1.3 million or 20%, which is much more than population growth.


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## K_ (Jan 5, 2010)

In Switzerland there is Mobility. 2500 cars of different types, about 70000 customers. Not bad for a small country.
Mobility has been around since 1987, and can be rightfully considered a car sharing pioneer. A lot of the technology they developed is now used by other car sharing organisations, for that purpose Mobility has spun of the business of develloping Car sharing software and hardware in a different company; Mobility International


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

In Paris there is autopartage, different companies offer it, one of them http://www.caisse-commune.com/video.html (nice video).


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

hofburg said:


> In Paris there is autopartage, different companies offer it, one of them http://www.caisse-commune.com/video.html (nice video).


Is that something a visitor could take advantage of, or do you need to have a French driver's license, live in Paris, whatever? (When I joined Zipcar they needed my driver's license as part of the application.)


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## nerdly_dood (Mar 23, 2007)

Zipcar has a bunch of ads at my university outside Washington DC and I've seen their cars driving around every once in a while.


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

Penn's Woods said:


> Is that something a visitor could take advantage of, or do you need to have a French driver's license, live in Paris, whatever? (When I joined Zipcar they needed my driver's license as part of the application.)


http://www.caisse-commune.com/service,condition.html just a driving licence that allows driving in France.


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

after velib for bicycles, they are lauching autolib for cars in Paris. some photos: 

https://picasaweb.google.com/116065...nsAutolib?feat=flashalbum#5655193099021299314

I don't know if only 5 parkings at each station will be enough.


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## TheCat (Apr 21, 2006)

In Toronto we have Zipcar as well. Never used it though.


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## Blackraven (Jan 19, 2006)

ChrisZwolle said:


> The Netherlands was traditionally a country with a relatively low automobile ownership, lower than many other European countries, however automobile ownership is on the rise, in the past 10 years the number of passenger cars increased by 1.3 million or 20%, which is much more than population growth.


I'm guessing this is for areas in the Netherlands where there are no train/rail services in the city centre. 

For metropolitan areas or capitals (like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hague/Den Haag), those places have train/rail transport so it's covered.

But for places without train (like perhaps Groningen), I guess it's either you walk, ride a bike, take a taxi.........or rent a car.

Just a thought though maybe ChrisZwolle, you know more about what's going on regarding this.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Well, Greenwheels has a bunch of locations here in Tilburg (Netherlands). I don't think they are contracting. What they did was a massive relocation of their cars to places close to residential areas (post codes) where people more likely to use them live.

AFAIK, AutoDate is the "generic" name they give for car-sharing, so an AutoDate parking spot can be assigned to Greenwheels or other competitor.

There is also ConnectCar, which specialized in smaller cars (like Smart, Punto etc.) They have a presence in major cities. 

In Switzerland, Mobility-CH is probably one of the largest, if not the largest, car sharing scheme in Europe.


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

Blackraven said:


> ....
> For metropolitan areas or capitals (like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hague/Den Haag), those places have train/rail transport so it's covered.
> ....


Is it?

No idea about the Netherlands, but I think a lot of people who use that sort of service here - including me, during the year between joining Zipcar and getting my own car - use it when they have lots of stuff to carry (they're moving, or doing major shopping....) Hard to take furniture, or ten bags of groceries, on a train....


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

I think I'm gonna give a try this autolib. It costs about 12€ a month, so it's much cheaper that any sort of parking, and you have guaranteed parking place at your destination.

The only disadvantage might be that you can never abandon your car, only if you leave it at the autolib station. So you can't really go shopping for exemple, if there's no stations any close.


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

Some other carsharing services found in the US.


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## kanterberg (Aug 3, 2009)

Penn's Woods said:


> Is it?
> 
> No idea about the Netherlands, but I think a lot of people who use that sort of service here - including me, during the year between joining Zipcar and getting my own car - use it when they have lots of stuff to carry (they're moving, or doing major shopping....) Hard to take furniture, or ten bags of groceries, on a train....


I agree, at least in Sweden the carsharing services have really only been successful in and around the bigger cities, where there's plenty of public transportation available. Like Penn's Wood is pointing out, there are plenty of situations where you need to use a car, regardless of how good or efficient the public transportation system is. Shopping, going to see friends and family over the weekend etc. If you live someplace really remote I doubt carsharing is really an option.


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

hofburg said:


> I think I'm gonna give a try this autolib. It costs about 12€ a month, so it's much cheaper that any sort of parking, and you have guaranteed parking place at your destination.
> 
> The only disadvantage might be that you can never abandon your car, only if you leave it at the autolib station. So you can't really go shopping for exemple, if there's no stations any close.


You mean you're not allowed to park it in regular parking places, just autolib ones?


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## GROBIN (Feb 27, 2011)

In Paris, there's Autolib. It started only in November, so for the moment, it's not perfect. Several cars are being smashed, others have mechanical/electric problems, which made some journalists state yesterday that 50% (!) of the _Autolib_s are currently in repair !

& in France in general, if car-sharing is like hitch-hiking for you, Covoiturage is very popular as public transportation between French cities is VERY expensive & there isn't a lot of competition.

In Germany, the equivalent of _Covoiturage_ is Mitfahrgelegenheit. In Poland, Carpooling is linked to _Mitfahrgelegenheit_, but is popular only amongst Polish people wanting to get to Poland and/or back. Means of transportation within Poland are very cheap (especially for the average Westerner) & there's a lot of competition.


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

Penn's Woods said:


> You mean you're not allowed to park it in regular parking places, just autolib ones?


I contacted them, here is the answer:



> _Bonjour Monsieur,
> 
> Nous vous remercions de l’intérêt que vous portez au service Autolib’.
> 
> ...


translation (google):

_Hello Sir,

Thank you for your interest in the service Autolib '.

With the service Autolib ', you have the option to park in other places than those reserved for the service - if you have no choice - for example in a city of Ile-de-France non-partner (eg St. Germain-en-Laye, Chatou, Vincennes ...), time for lunch with a friend, a visit of a relative at a hospital where no station Autolib 'would be available on a superstore car park. ..

... But in all these cases, your meter will keep running until you return the vehicle at a station Autolib '.

We remain at your disposal for any further information.

In the meantime, we wish you a happy new year 2012._


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

so yes, you're allowed to park somewhere else, but time counter will continue... first 1/2 hour is 5€, second 4€, any additional 6€.

so if you go to a friend who lives in central paris, and you start, let say, at peripherique, you will pay 9€ aller, then you park the car at the station. when going back, you should pray there will still be a car available, and you pay 9€ retour. so that's 18€ all togehter. if you do that weekly, that's 72€ month + 11€ abonnement, so 83€. which is way more expensive than parking abonnement and a fuel for these short trips al together; not considering any additional usage of autolib.

so I realize now, it's a big screw-up. usage of electric cars should be cheaper than fuel ones.


https://www.autolib.eu/nos-tarifs/


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

^^I see.

Zipcar works differently: each car has an individual name and an assigned space. And each member has a member card. You reserve a particular car for a particular block of time, pick it up at its assigned space and return it there when you're done (there's nothing to stop you from parking it in its space during your reservation) - it's not available to anyone else during your reservation. (The car that's reserved to you can only be locked and unlocked by using your member card, which is read by a transponder in the windshield.) So there's no issue of "hoping a car's available" when you're done with your lunch with your friend or whatever.

Although as the service caught on, during 2008, it got harder to use the service on impulse - at first, you could decide "I want to go to such-and-such now," go on line, and reserve for immediate use a car that was parked reasonably close to you... then after a few months I found myself more and more often having to wait a few hours and going to some remote spots to get cars.


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## hofburg (Jun 27, 2009)

reservations will be available for autolib as well, but later. but I agree, if the service will appear useful to Parisiens, I think they will soon get run off cars.
In Paris that's like opening a new tramway line, as soon as it's opened, you have no place to sit when you use it; and you question yourself, what kind of transport have these people used before.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

The biggest one in the UK I think is City Car Club, operating in 13 cities.

http://www.citycarclub.co.uk/


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