Sci-Tech Information: Jump in and Drive: Car Hire by the Minute Pulls on to UK Roads
It is billed as the ultimate in convenient urban motoring: the use of a car on demand without the hassles and costs of owning one. Pick it up near home or work on the spur of the moment, pay by the minute, and park almost anywhere you want.
One-way, on-street car hire, a new twist on the now familiar rent-by - the-hour model dominated by Zipcar, has arrived in Britain in the form of German company car2go.
It is expanding across Europe to north American cities including Miami, Seattle and Toronto. Its main competitor, Munich-based DriveNow, currently in four German cities and San Francisco, is also planning global expansion.
The system is simple: car2go customers pay a registration fee - 29.90 in Britain - then use a smartphone app to find a nearby car, normally a two-seater, and a swipe card to unlock it. Bookings can be made as little as 30 minutes in advance.
Drivers can take the vehicles anywhere, but are only allowed to end their rental in a designated "home zone", which in markets other than London is generally the entire city. Charges are by the minute - 35p in Britain, up to an hourly maximum of 14.90.
That is more expensive than Zipcar, which goes for as little as 5 an hour. But journeys are often as short as a few minutes, and the prices are meant to compete with the cost of a taxi. Zipcar's approach, by contrast, often requires advance booking and requires users to return a car to its bay at a predetermined time.
Car2go entered Birmingham with 250 cars in May and is catching on quickly. Parking rights are key to its operation and, as in most of the 21 cities where it operates, the company has agreed with local officials that users can park in nearly any legal spot, including pay-and-display and resident-only zones.
What makes it attractive is that it is convenient for short journeys. In Birmingham, Calum Brannan says his car2go journey from work in the Jewellery Quarter to New Street station takes just a few minutes and costs about 2.50, cheaper than the seven or eight pounds he would spend on a cab.
"It just gives you that extra flexibility," he said. "Not having to plan in advance and be lumped with a car."Frank Fackey, a student at the University of East London, used car2go once a week when it was briefly available in Newham this year and was disappointed when the company moved its cars out of the borough: "I'd drive it to places where there wasn't a good public transport option. It's just get in and go."
But rollout in London has been frustratingly slow. It began limited operations in the capital in December, but despite two years of negotiating with the city's 33 boroughs, car2go is fully available only in Islington and Sutton, with more limited operations in seven others, and a total of 500 cars.
"Londoners are really interested in car-sharing, and the market potential is huge," said chief executive Robert Heinrich. But of all the cities car2go has worked with, "London is one of the most difficult", and it is likely to take a year or more to build a wider operation there.
With 8,000 vehicles and more than 400,000 users, cargo2 hopes to be in 50 cities by 2015. DriveNow claims 150,000 customers and wants a million by 2020.
Several other firms are operating on a smaller scale and in Paris the Bollor© industrial group backs the one-way electric car-sharing scheme Autolib, although parking is limited to designated stations.
With big up-front costs, it is not clear yet how well one-way sharing works as a business model. car2go and DriveNow both have major corporate backing: car2go is a partnership between Daimler and Europcar, and DriveNow is owned by BMW and Sixt. The companies are guarded in discussing earnings, but insist they mean to become profitable ventures, not just generators of publicity for their corporate parents.
Martyn Briggs mobility expert at business consultancy Frost & Sullivan says that until the economics of one-way hire becomes clearer, any new entrants will probably also be backed by a big manufacturer.
One complication, says Emilio Frazzoli, an MIT professor who studies urban transport, is the need for companies to sometimes move cars to ensure availability. Ccar2go and DriveNow say they do so only occasionally, but Frazzoli believes the logistical issues could limit growth.
Nonetheless, he sees one-way car sharing as "absolutely game-changing" with the potential to reduce the number of cars clogging urban roads.
"The usual answer to increasing demand for transportation has been building more infrastructure," he said. "We cannot do that any more."
As a complement to public transport, he said: "I see [one-way sharing] as the only sustainable way to address urban mobility in the future."
One-way, on-street car hire, a new twist on the now familiar rent-by - the-hour model dominated by Zipcar, has arrived in Britain in the form of German company car2go.
It is expanding across Europe to north American cities including Miami, Seattle and Toronto. Its main competitor, Munich-based DriveNow, currently in four German cities and San Francisco, is also planning global expansion.
The system is simple: car2go customers pay a registration fee - 29.90 in Britain - then use a smartphone app to find a nearby car, normally a two-seater, and a swipe card to unlock it. Bookings can be made as little as 30 minutes in advance.
Drivers can take the vehicles anywhere, but are only allowed to end their rental in a designated "home zone", which in markets other than London is generally the entire city. Charges are by the minute - 35p in Britain, up to an hourly maximum of 14.90.
That is more expensive than Zipcar, which goes for as little as 5 an hour. But journeys are often as short as a few minutes, and the prices are meant to compete with the cost of a taxi. Zipcar's approach, by contrast, often requires advance booking and requires users to return a car to its bay at a predetermined time.
Car2go entered Birmingham with 250 cars in May and is catching on quickly. Parking rights are key to its operation and, as in most of the 21 cities where it operates, the company has agreed with local officials that users can park in nearly any legal spot, including pay-and-display and resident-only zones.
What makes it attractive is that it is convenient for short journeys. In Birmingham, Calum Brannan says his car2go journey from work in the Jewellery Quarter to New Street station takes just a few minutes and costs about 2.50, cheaper than the seven or eight pounds he would spend on a cab.
"It just gives you that extra flexibility," he said. "Not having to plan in advance and be lumped with a car."Frank Fackey, a student at the University of East London, used car2go once a week when it was briefly available in Newham this year and was disappointed when the company moved its cars out of the borough: "I'd drive it to places where there wasn't a good public transport option. It's just get in and go."
But rollout in London has been frustratingly slow. It began limited operations in the capital in December, but despite two years of negotiating with the city's 33 boroughs, car2go is fully available only in Islington and Sutton, with more limited operations in seven others, and a total of 500 cars.
"Londoners are really interested in car-sharing, and the market potential is huge," said chief executive Robert Heinrich. But of all the cities car2go has worked with, "London is one of the most difficult", and it is likely to take a year or more to build a wider operation there.
With 8,000 vehicles and more than 400,000 users, cargo2 hopes to be in 50 cities by 2015. DriveNow claims 150,000 customers and wants a million by 2020.
Several other firms are operating on a smaller scale and in Paris the Bollor© industrial group backs the one-way electric car-sharing scheme Autolib, although parking is limited to designated stations.
With big up-front costs, it is not clear yet how well one-way sharing works as a business model. car2go and DriveNow both have major corporate backing: car2go is a partnership between Daimler and Europcar, and DriveNow is owned by BMW and Sixt. The companies are guarded in discussing earnings, but insist they mean to become profitable ventures, not just generators of publicity for their corporate parents.
Martyn Briggs mobility expert at business consultancy Frost & Sullivan says that until the economics of one-way hire becomes clearer, any new entrants will probably also be backed by a big manufacturer.
One complication, says Emilio Frazzoli, an MIT professor who studies urban transport, is the need for companies to sometimes move cars to ensure availability. Ccar2go and DriveNow say they do so only occasionally, but Frazzoli believes the logistical issues could limit growth.
Nonetheless, he sees one-way car sharing as "absolutely game-changing" with the potential to reduce the number of cars clogging urban roads.
"The usual answer to increasing demand for transportation has been building more infrastructure," he said. "We cannot do that any more."
As a complement to public transport, he said: "I see [one-way sharing] as the only sustainable way to address urban mobility in the future."
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