Car Clubs - A Cool Idea

Very interesting article in THE INDEPENDENT today.

Car-parks, in housing developments and elsewhere, offering cars for
easy and affordable hourly rental along a sort of Velib system, so
that people can have cars when they need them (to go to IKEA, etc.)
without having to own them.

http://money.independent.co.uk/prope...cle3088193.ece

I hope this takes off in a lot of countries.

EFR
Ile de France (for example)

In article .com,
says...
Very interesting article in THE INDEPENDENT today.

Car-parks, in housing developments and elsewhere, offering cars for
easy and affordable hourly rental along a sort of Velib system, so
that people can have cars when they need them (to go to IKEA, etc.)
without having to own them.

http://money.independent.co.uk/prope...cle3088193.ece

I hope this takes off in a lot of countries.


I belong to Streetcar and it works very well. Doesn't replace my main
car but means I use it a lot less and it allows me to cycle more knowing
that I can pick up and use a car when needed at the end of the journey
rather than taking my car with me on the journey.

--
Tony

" I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
Bertrand Russell

In oups.com,
Artemisia tweaked the Babbage-Engine to tell us:
http://money.independent.co.uk/prope...cle3088193.ece

"There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be
displayed." Bah!

IIRC this is fairly widespread in Germany. We once - about ten years ago -
had a German chap come to stay with a view to selling the idea to various
London councils but nothing seemed to come of it at the time, though I dimly
recall seeing an item about such a thing on one of the TV motorcar shows.

--
Dave Larrington
http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk
This Unit is a productive Unit.

Artemisia wrote:
Very interesting article in THE INDEPENDENT today.

Car-parks, in housing developments and elsewhere, offering cars for
easy and affordable hourly rental along a sort of Velib system, so
that people can have cars when they need them (to go to IKEA, etc.)
without having to own them.

Pal of mine is in one in Edinburgh. The trick seems to be a certain
density of population, which sadly doesn't seem to be present in Dundee
:-(

It also depends on what usage you want to make. Typically, such cars
are very popular at weekends for obvious reasons, and that's when we'd
want one, and we'd want it for the whole weekend and we'd want it with
roof-bars, which doesn't fit the generic sort of vehicle wanted in our
case. But that by no means invalidates the thing on a general basis!

Work has introduced pool cars for NHST business and they're popular and
doing well. Only catch was I couldn't get one last time I needed one as
they were booked out already that day...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

In article .com,
Artemisia
says...
Very interesting article in THE INDEPENDENT today.

Car-parks, in housing developments and elsewhere, offering cars for
easy and affordable hourly rental along a sort of Velib system, so
that people can have cars when they need them (to go to IKEA, etc.)
without having to own them.

It's almost like public transport that works. :-)

"Artemisia" wrote in message
oups.com...
Very interesting article in THE INDEPENDENT today.

Car-parks, in housing developments and elsewhere, offering cars for
easy and affordable hourly rental along a sort of Velib system, so
that people can have cars when they need them (to go to IKEA, etc.)
without having to own them.

http://money.independent.co.uk/prope...cle3088193.ece

I hope this takes off in a lot of countries.


Bristol's been doing it for years, and is expanding it all the time.

On Oct 26, 9:06 am, Peter Clinch wrote:
Pal of mine is in one in Edinburgh. The trick seems to be a certain
density of population, which sadly doesn't seem to be present in Dundee
:-(

Stroud, population 10,000 has one. Keenness for green issues probably
helps - the Green party run the town council, the mayor can be seen
round town on his bike. I'd have thought Dundee was easily big enough
to support one, you just need a few people who are pushy enough to get
it going.

Rob

In uk.rec.cycling Tony Raven wrote:

I belong to Streetcar and it works very well. Doesn't replace my main

I've joined WizzGo in York and it's excellent.

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune PGP/GPG Key: http://www.clune.org/pubkey.txt
The struggle of people against power is the struggle
of memory against forgetting - Milan Kundera

Artemisia wrote:
Very interesting article in THE INDEPENDENT today.

Car-parks, in housing developments and elsewhere, offering cars for
easy and affordable hourly rental along a sort of Velib system, so
that people can have cars when they need them (to go to IKEA, etc.)
without having to own them.

http://money.independent.co.uk/prope...cle3088193.ece

I hope this takes off in a lot of countries.

EFR
Ile de France (for example)


FlexCar seems to be picking up here in the States. Not sure about its
European counterparts, but Flex car has several locations around the
city with only one or two cars. You simply make your reservation ahead
of time and a magic fairy comes and gives you the keys. The spaces are
reserved for that specific car only (very obviously painted) so you just
drop it back off when your done. I wish I new more of the details.

\\paul

In article ,
says...

FlexCar seems to be picking up here in the States. Not sure about its
European counterparts, but Flex car has several locations around the
city with only one or two cars. You simply make your reservation ahead
of time and a magic fairy comes and gives you the keys. The spaces are
reserved for that specific car only (very obviously painted) so you just
drop it back off when your done. I wish I new more of the details.


Streetcar its even easier. Go to their website to check availability
and book the car. Walk up to car, wave Smart Card at windscreen to
unlock it, retrieve keys from glove box dispenser by entering your PIN
code, start car and drive off. There are pretty hefty charges for late
returns so getting there and finding the car not back from the previous
hirer is rare. In the same way as Flex, the parking space is clearly
marked out and reserved.

--
Tony

" I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
Bertrand Russell