World Carshare Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 1

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

This won't happen very often I promise you, but there has been enough going on of late in and around World CarShare that a quick newsletter seemed like the most efficient way of putting before you the latest news and on-going events.

Vol. 1, No. 1 highlights an about-to-begin group survey of carsharing from a world wide perspective: two surveys in fact, one of users, the second of operators. . The goal is to provide much needed international feedback without any kind of internal filter or 'interpretation' to our hard-working friends the carshare operators of this world, and to those public sector agencies that are -- or at least should be -- concerned about doing their part in advancing this important, proven sustainability tool. It also is intended to give us at World CarShare some unfiltered feedback on what we should be doing here to better support the movement in an active and fully independent way.

For the rest you have a small 'contents ' just above, so have a look and away we go. And if you have any questions or ideas for us, all you have to do is click the Contact link just about and you will find all you need to get in touch. Email and phone work just fine, but best of all is a visit to Paris.

Eric Britton

1. CarShare Surveys: 2004 World Outreach

WorldCarShare.com has been with you every day on the Web since 1996, looking at and encouraging carsharing initiatives around the world for a lot longer than that, and we feel that now is a good time to take stock and listen to what you have to say. To this end we have organized a pair of group surveys, one aimed at carshare users, the second at operators. Have a first look here:

User Outreach Survey

Operator Survey & Inventory

Like everything we do here at The Commons, this is a cooperative exercise, so it is going to be as good as we all make it. Also, we felt that it would be useful if we start by co-designing the enquiry form with you, so we have set up the following little schedule for this:

Pre-survey, 17-30 June: Comments invited from group for finalization.
Full survey, July: Based on amended pre-survey form. Open to public.
Initial report, August: Open report on findings and conclusions posted on site. Left for one month for feedback and comments for finalization.
Final group report, Sept. Posted on site, complete with section including special comments, suggestions and reservations by identified contributors.

- - > more here

2. World CarShare News Alerts

The internet gives us unprecedented opportunities to stay abreast of latest carshare developments world wide. This section of the site provides one click overviews of latest developments in six languages.

Check it out from time to time. You may be surprised at how much is going on. And how much there is to learn. (We find it goes quite nicely with that first morning coffee.)

- - > more here

3. Coming Events: You are invited.

Advance information on forthcoming events, demonstrations and other activities relating to carsharing that may be of interest and use to the members of our expanding group. The content is shaped by the information made available to us by our colleagues around the world, both in direct communications and via messages posted to the @World CarShare Forum.

Make sure you keep us all informed. Let us know right here. In this way you can be sure that the favor will be returned.

- - > more here

4. Active Research/Joint Problem Solving

From time to time we get together to tackle a problem of common interest. You have seen this in the past with our collaboration with the OECD and the German Environment Agency, the Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities and the World Technology Network, with results that have been broadly useful to the group.

We have several potentially interesting projects cooking at this time, one on the prospects of rural carsharing and another (a bit further in the future) for creating an open, very low cost e-communications network, with IP videoconferencing and based on equipment and efficient communications technologies which are now available to us all. Check them both out and let us hear from you,

- - > more here

5. The New Mobility Agenda<

WorldCarShare.com is part of a much greater push to sustainable development and social justice under The Commons, and is specifically one of several free-standing programs of the New Mobility Agenda cluster. Unconstrained by bureaucracy, economic interests or schedules, the Agenda was launched in 1988 as an open international platform for critical discussion, exchanges of materials and views, and diverse forms of cross-border collaboration on the challenging, necessarily conflicted topic of "sustainable transportation and social justice".

The leading edge of thinking and practice in the transport field has moved a long way over the last years, and a successful carsharing project must take this into account. New Mobility is one good way to get a feel for the important developments that are reshaping the broader policy environment behind carsharing.

- - > more here

6. Update Address Book/Protect your email

Recently we were counseled by one of our colleagues to have a look at an email verification and address book program called Plaxo, which I personally am in the process of using in order to clean out and update my/our very large email address files . It does the job well, it's free, it's rather handsome, and thus far it is trouble-free. For the record, I found that fully 20% of my carefully maintained addresses were in fact either changed or not working. And so it ever goes on the web. (Attention: works with MS Outlook only.)

World CarShare Consortium

Eric Britton

EcoPlan International
Le Frene, 8, rue Joseph Bara
F75006 Paris, France, Europe

mail@ericbritton.org
www.ericbritton.org

tel:
mobile:

+33 (1) 5301 2896
+33 (6) 8096 7879

I invite you to check it out with me as a first trial step, and if you like it, well that's your call.

Click to know more about Plaxo Connect 2.0
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