Carsharing

Group working draft . . . in-process

Notice concerning this working draft and invitation to participate:
 This do-it-yourself kit is to be developed here in stages. In its final version it will provide a "planning kit" of the sort that we intend to bring on line for a number of the kinds of projects and activities that an individual citizen or local group can do to participate in ECFD 2001. What you see here thus far should be considered as an incomplete, in-process group brainstorm. It represents a quick first stab at the dossier which we hope to complete and improve in the coming weeks with the help of those groups and people with particular expertise and backgrounds in this area. We are immediately drawing this to the attention of the members of the @World Carshare discussion list, and asking them for comments, rectifications, etc.. As they are received, the necessary modifications will be made here. In the meantime, even this draft is already a pretty good start in defining this option for some of you for the great Day.
  • "Carsharing"?
  • Does Carsharing help the environment?
  • Carsharing as an option for April 19th
  • Further Background & Help
  • Leading by Example
  • And here is where you come in

    • "Carsharing"?

    Though carsharing is a concept that is becoming increasingly practiced in cities (mostly, but also in some rural areas) around the world, it is still pretty much unknown in places that don't have it. For this reason, and in particular because it is often confused with "ridesharing" or "lift-sharing", we need to be sure to define it here properly at the outset (click here for more general background and definitions).

    Carsharing is by definition a group activity. The idea (which in its simpler earlier variants has been around for many decades) is to get rid of one or all of your own cars and instead share vehicles in any of several ways with your neighbors and others in your community. Sound like a light-weight idea? Practical experience of the last few years suggests that it can in certain circumstances be a serious transportation option for certain kinds of places.

    The range of ways in which carsharing is done in 2001 is nearly as large in practice as it is in theory. At one end you can have quasi-familial neighborhood 'share a banger' agreements, and at the other some quite sophisticated club arrangements that offer high quality service, sometimes with quite a bit of new technology lurking under the hood. (It is this latter end of the range that is seeing the most growth of late.) For a quick introduction to the way in which one typical modern carshare operation works in practice, click here.

    And now that you have the idea, and to reassure you that all this is not just pure speculation, let us start by pointing you here to a range of different types of services, covering the fourteen countries where we know of currently active CSO operations. As you will note, they cover not only a range of countries and use contexts but also of size and technical sophistication.

    (And don't forget if you need help with a language you do not master, you can make good use of the Translate button on the top bar.)

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    Does Carsharing help the environment?

     This is at first glance perhaps not so self-evident. After all, what difference is there if you are running around in a vehicle that belongs to a car sharing club, or if you own it yourself? There's still some sort of motor, it's still eating up resources and causing environmental problems, you're still taking up scarce urban space, etc.

    It turns out that there is a big difference, and further that this varies a lot from place to place. To make a long story short, the advantages include the fact that in most actual operations shared vehicles turn out to be newer and cleaner than the own-vehicle average. And while that has some impact, the big difference is that people who use shared cars tend (a) to be more sparing in their use and (b) make significantly more use of other, more sustainable movement options in their "total mobility cocktail". Thus, you are far more likely to see a carsharer in a bus or on a bike for some of her trips than the average car owner/driver. It is this transfer to a very different way of getting around where we see the real sustainability impact.

    Another sustainability wrinkle that we have observed -- and that often gets lost in the heat of daily life -- is that when people join carshare operations they seem to undergo a gradual change in their attitudes and choices in several respects. On the one hand, the whole style of carsharing tends to make us more neighborly in our attitudes. And since we are de facto already being more careful about the environment, it seems likely that we are just that more likely to be a bit proud of our accomplishment, and therefore be just that more ready to do even better in the future. And not necessarily only in a car.

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    Carsharing as an option for April 19th

    In the context of ECFD 2001 we suggest that you may wish to have a look at four different options as far as carsharing is concerned:

    1. Contacting an existing carshare service in your city.
    2. Check to see if your local car rental company might be able to offer something.
    3. Take this as an opportunity to see if the concept might make sense in your community.
    4. Organise a one-day carsharing experiment.
    Not all these are equally attractive or practical as near term options, but let's review them briefly in order. Back to top

    1. Do you have a CSO in your city?

     Today, there are more than 500 active carsharing organizations (CSO's) of various sorts around the world. While most of these thus far are in Europe, over the last several years they have begun to take hold as well in a number of North American cities. To see if there is one in your community, a good place to begin is with our latest @World Carshare Organizations Inventory.

    If you find one listed for you, we suggest that you get in touch. They will not only be able to inform you about how their service works, but also may be offering some sort of cooperative package for Earth Car Free Day.

    If none is listed for your community, you may want to send an email to the @World Carshare Consortium Forum, asking the more than 250 specialists who regularly use this site for their suggestions.

    2. Check with your local car rental company
    If there is not already a CSO in your city, you might do worse than to contact the main rental car agencies to see if they have or are contemplating offers carshare services. In the last two years Budget, Hertz, and Avis all have already started up CSO's in several cities, usually on a 'probe the market' basis. Still they are obviously beginning to take this seriously, and it could be that if enough people in your community bang on their door, they might give it a try there as well.

    3. Start your own one-day CSO
    Let's see now, how can you start a CSO for a single day? We have no ready help for you on that, but if you come up with ideas for us, let us know and we will share them with everyone else. Certainly a good place to get started in your thinking on that will be the by checking out the references that are given here, as well as the handful of outstanding print references which appear below. It could be the first small step in something that might become much bigger and even a part of the permanent transportation landscape of your city.

    4. Study and discuss the possibility of a CSO for your community
    If you live in a city and if you and others like you travel by car less than 10,000 kilometers a year, you should probably look into carsharing.

    All the evidence suggests that carsharing works best where there is a certain level of clustering of activity (as opposed to the extreme spread-city model). And if some of your daily trips can be served by public transport, walking or cycling, then it really is worth a good look.

    Since there is so much solid information available on this on the Net, you may wish to make such a public discussion one of your contributions to Earth Car Free Day. In addition to the sources identified above, here are a few others that you might find it useful to check out by way of further background.

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    Further Background & Help

    As far as print support is concerned, you will find a great deal of helpful information and perspective from the following milestone reports:

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    Leading by Example

    Section to follow:
    It is here where you will in time hopefully find the "project summaries" that we are inviting local teams around the world to submit in order to share their experience with other groups, projects and places. One advantage that such sharing can have for them is that they can thereby have the benefit of having external expert comments and suggestions on their plans. This is intended to show the power of open planning in the age of the Information Society.
    • Case A: (Link to summary here.)
    • Case A: (Link to summary here.)
    • Case C: (Link ...)
    • etc.

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    And here is where you come in

    This is where you come in... the one-click link you can use to share your ideas and tips about people and places with whom we should be in touch to make a success out of ECFD 2001. Better yet, why not click here to reply to the EarthCarFreeDay mailbox so that your information and comments will get to the others immediately, and perhaps stimulate them in turn.

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