Guest blog post: Kate Beecroft- shyft
Car sharing: quick, convenient and cheap.
City dwellers in North America and Europe have easy and convenient transport options that they can use Snapper like cards to access. This model is known as carsharing. Our startup called shyft is aiming to provide this great service in Wellington.
For those who aren’t familiar with carshare, the model differs significantly from traditional car rental companies: all insurance and petrol is included, bookings are self-service via computer or smartphone, and cars are conveniently dispersed in neighbourhoods where people need them. You just walk downto your local car, use your Snapper cards to swipe into a little compartment on the front windscreen to access the key, and away you go.
More public transport and active transport (walking and cycling) are helping to build better cities and healthier people, you can read more about the developments in New Zealand in the blog post “a Choice Future for Transport in Wellington”.
But we can’t yet dismiss the car just yet – cars will inevitably be needed in the medium and long term for certain purposes like picking up a Trademe purchase, going on a weekend trip or going on a spontaneous trip to the beach on a sunny afternoon. It’s car ownership that could be on its way out.
What’s in it for users?
For the individual, carsharing is appealing as it saves money and also eliminates the hassles involved with keeping a car in working order in the city. In the United States, members of the largest carsharing program, Zipcar, save an average of $500 a month compared to owning a car – enough such that 787,000 people had joined Zipcar at last count. The savings in New Zealand is likely to be larger on average due to higher taxes and vehicle related costs. New Zealand has a very old vehicle fleet by developed world standards. As a result, getting people into newer, safer and more fuel-efficient cars can only be positive.
Carsharing and our relationship with the car
It’spossible to change our relationship with the car in a way that better integrates it with an all-mode transport system and, surprisingly, encourages a sustainable lifestyle. An image borrowed from Julie Anne Genter’s post expresses where Carshare fits in the overall transport mix:
The impacts almost entirely positive.
A recent report alleges that our cars sit idle 96% of the time. Carsharing is one very popular means of reducing the environmental impacts, social impacts, personal costs of car ownership, and vehicle idle time in a way that improves life for everyone.
Some other notable impacts:
- The reduction in vehicle ownership can keep between $150,000-$300,000 per vehicle in the local economy according to the Intelligent Cities Project. This is especially true in NZ where there are no auto manufacturers and few parts manufacturers
- Between 15 and 30 vehicles can be removed from the road per car installed.
- Personal carbon emissions can be reduced by as much as 50% in urban environments where carbon impact is dominated by transport.
Carsharing is a concept that experienced huge growth between 2006 and 2012, with a global growth of 1 million users. This has particularly been concentrated in North America and Australia (European systems are more mature) with relatively little representation in New Zealand. The organisation Cityhop has had some impact in Auckland, but could use additional support from government and sustainability-oriented organizations – and more carsharing systems around the country could only improve uptake, as we hope to see in Wellington.
For a country that is famous for its early adoption of many technologies it’s puzzling that carshare hasn’t taken a strong hold here. On the face of it, New Zealand shares many qualities with North America, Australia and Europe that make carsharing popular in those countries. All three continents have traditionally been dependent on cars, are experiencing decreasing numbers of car ownership and vehicle kilometres travelled, and have experienced a growing interest in urban and transport sustainability.
So what next?
An effective carsharing network in Wellington would do leaps and bounds for the economy, for the environment, and for our wallets. It’d also make it easier to make public transport the convenient choice when we can use smart cards to access cars and ride the bus.
We aim to add another carsharing service called shyft to provide cars in Wellington, and would ask you to help us get it on the roads here!