INTERNATIONAL car clubs
Car
clubs (known as car sharing) on the European continent has been a success story.
Starting from small beginnings in the late 1980’s, the idea
has become so popular that many schemes have developed into
professionally run organisations offering an efficient, flexible,
neighbourhood form of short-term car hire. The most successful
schemes are in Switzerland and Germany, with Austria and the Netherlands
following their lead. Schemes are developing well in Denmark,
Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy and France.
By 2007 car clubs in European cities had a total membership of
more than 230,000.
North America has followed
Europe’s example with successful car clubs in more than 60 cities in
the USA and Canada and a combined membership of over 155,000.
Switzerland
The first car sharing co-operatives were set up in Switzerland in
1987 with 30 members sharing two vehicles. There is now a
country-wide scheme - Mobility Car Sharing –
which was created in May 1997, and the supply of vehicles and number
of users has grown exponentially: in 1993, there were around 3,000
car sharers, while by May 2006 the membership had risen to 65,000 people sharing
approximately 1,750 vehicles at 1000 locations in over 400
communities across the country. Membership is steadily increasing, and more than
140 staff are
employed.
Chart
showing changes in travel behaviour of car club members in
Switzerland (click on chart to see full size).
Germany
There are several schemes in Germany.
The first, StattAuto, was founded in Berlin in
1988 with 5 people sharing a single car. By 1999 it was the largest
Car Sharing organisation in Germany with 7600 participants and 300
vehicles.
In
2004 the biggest and most successful carsharing company of the
Netherlands, `Greenwheels` - bought the majority of StattAuto
shares. In 2005 StattAuto/Greenwheels underlined cooperation
contracts with three regional public transport authorities - VBB (Verkehrsverbund
Berlin-Brandenburg), HVV (Hamburger Verkehrsverbund), VVW (Verkehrsverbund
Warnow, Rostock). Public transport customers with subscription
tickets can use StattAuto/Greenwheels cars without any deposit and
monthly fee.
In
December 2005 the General Assembly of shareholders decided to change
the name of the company from ´StattAuto CarSharing AG` to ´Greenwheels
AG`. In 2006 there were about 85,000 car-sharers in more than 250
towns and communities in Germany
using 2,500 cars at 1,500 locations.
Following
the successful examples of Switzerland and Berlin, StadtAuto
Car-Sharing started in Bremen in 1990, first as a club with 28
participants sharing three cars located in 2 stations about 2
kilometres apart. Just nine years later nearly 2,000 people
out of a total population of 550,000 were using roughly 80 cars in
46 stations all over the Bremen urban area. These users include a
number of companies, a hospital and the city health department,
where the car sharing system replaces the business car(s), or rounds
off the company fleet.
North America
The car dependent
United States is the latest success story for car clubs with more
than 135,000 members recruited since 1999.
French
speaking Canada has been operating car clubs since the mid 90s,
progressing at a similar rate to some European countries, but it is
only recently that the United States has come onto the scene.
Organisations such as Zipcar and
Flexcar achieved
professionally run companies in a very short time span, making North
America the latest success story for car clubs. The two companies
merged in November 2007, providing a service in New York, Boston,
Washington D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Los
Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Vancouver and
Toronto. Nonprofit City CarShare in
S
an
Francisco began operating in March 2001, and had
120 cars at 62 locations and 5000 members by May 2006.
Nancy
Rosenzweig,
Marketing Director of Zipcar spoke on marketing a car
club to a car dependent society at our 2002 annual conference.
Christine
Anderson of King County Metro in Seattle spoke at our conference in 2004 on how Metro, as a public transport provider has
worked in partnership with Flexcar.
Australia
A
2008 Melbourne Council survey of 101 car share members showed that a
quarter of respondents had sold a car since joining the Flexicar
program. Flexicar,
(then Flo Carshare) staged a pilot testing phase from December 2004-
February 2005. The service launched in Melbourne on March 2005, with
an “official launch” event in August 2005 by Deputy Premier
Thwaites and Lord Mayor John So. The name was changed to Flexicar in
October 2006, to better reflect the purpose of the service. Flexicar
launched in Sydney in February 2007. By 2008 Flexicar was
Australia's largest car sharing company with 1500 members.
Papers
and press articles
Contacts
-
Worldwide
list of clubs plus debate and contacts on the World Carshare
Consortium worldcarshare.com
-
For European car club contacts see
www.carsharing.org. Please note this site has not been updated
for some time.
For contacts in North America and worldwide see
www.carsharing.net.
-
Stockholm
Partnerships: Examples of best practice in sustainability
includes some car clubs worldwide
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