Carsharing

A sophisticated project based on small electric vehicles, electronic controls for reservations and return, and plans for a large number of stations covering the entire city.

An office in Ipswich provided a Share-a-Car service for "putting motorists who are interested in sharing car journeys in touch with each other.

The 1980s and first half of the 1990s was a "coming of age" period for car sharing, with continued slow growth, mainly of smaller non-profit systems, mostly in Switzerland and Germany[6] but also on a smaller scale in Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the U.S.[7] Carsharing in North America began in Quebec City in 1994 after Benoît Robert started a company called Communauto that is still a leader in car sharing globally.

Cycling advocate and environmentalist Claire Morissette (1950–2007) played a major role in its evolution starting in 1995, when Communauto established itself in Montreal as a private company.

The first car-sharing company in the U.S. was CarSharing Portland, founded by Dave Brook in March by 1998 after a visit from Conrad Wagner of Mobility Switzerland.

Conrad and Dave would also help establish Flexcar in Seattle, which launched in 2000, the same year as competitor Zipcar on the east coast.

Car sharing is noted as a tool for achieving vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets in the California Transport Plan (CTP) 2040 to reduce congestion and pollution.

[17] Successful car sharing development has tended to be associated mainly with densely populated areas, such as city centers and more recently university and other campuses.

These trends have created a demand for a new model of car sharing – residential, private-access share-cars that are typically underwritten by the Homeowner association.

[citation needed] In Germany a pilot project has been started by the semiconductor manufacturer Infineon to replace regular pool vehicles with a corporate car sharing system.

With owned automobiles many expenses are sunk costs and thus independent of how much the car is driven (such as original purchase, insurance, registration, and some maintenance).

According to Navigant Consulting, global carsharing services revenue is expected to grow to US$6.2 billion by 2020, with over 12 million members worldwide.

For future applications, many carsharing companies invest in plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) to reduce petroleum consumption.

Some companies, like Ernst & Young, have also started to use blockchain technology to record ownership, usage of shared vehicles and insurance information.

[29] As of 2017, free-floating car sharing is available in 55 cities and 20 countries worldwide, with 40,000 vehicles and serving 5.6 million users, with Europe and North America representing the majority of the market.

[40] The simplest CSOs have only one or two pick-up points, but more advanced systems allow cars to be picked up and dropped off at any available public parking space within a designated operating area.

Once the customer places their membership card on the reader, it will use what is called blink technology to activate the time and unlock the car.

Usually the app will include insurance, gas cards, and upkeep to their fleet of cars at no additional charge to the customer.