Saturday, October 02, 1999 Consider benefits of sharing a car
Downtown residents stand to save a lot in parking alone
Tracy Lemay
Financial Post
Robert Galbraith, National Post
Benoit Robert, president of CommunAuto in Quebec, says there is a one-month wait to sign up.
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You can't help but think Liz Reynolds and Benoit Robert are fighting an uphill battle.
Their approach to automobiles stands in stark contrast to mainstream car makers and retailers: They don't preach bigger, faster, fancier or keeping up with the Joneses.
Instead, they're proponents of car sharing, a concept that has a decades-long history in Europe but is relatively new in Canada.
The idea runs counter to North America's car culture in which vehicle ownership is viewed as a right of passage for younger people, and owning the right car is perceived as a measure of success for older folks.
It involves sharing the use of a car with a group of other people, and paying only for the period when you're actually using the vehicle. The vehicles are owned by the car sharing company.
Mr. Robert helped found Canada's first car-share operation in Quebec City in 1994, he launched another in Montreal in 1995 and the two were merged in 1997.
Since then several such companies have sprung up in major cities including Vancouver and Toronto. Ms. Reynold's AutoShare -- Car Sharing Network Inc. in Toronto began about a year ago.
To suggest there might be something as practical -- or maybe even more so -- than car ownership, sounds, well, almost unpatriotic.
But it has a lot going for it.
For people with moderate driving needs -- sharing is not suited to those who drive to work every day -- it could mean significant cost savings over car ownership.
Our love affair with the automobile costs us heavily. The Canadian Automobile Association says it costs more than $7,000 a year on average to own and operate a subcompact in Canada. Expenses in some major urban centres are $1,000 a year above that. A full-sized car will set you back about $12,000 a year.
Also, car sharing appear
s to be a realistic way of reducing the number of vehicles on the roads. In rural areas, cutting down traffic is probably not a major concern. But in urban Canada, we are drowning in cars, trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles.
Technology may make automobiles less harmful to the environment, but there's little it can do to alleviate the gridlock in urban areas caused by the sheer numbers.
To determine if car sharing would work for you, you have to assess your driving patterns and costs, and compare them to services of, and charges levied by, the companies.
These costs fall into two categories -- there are expenses to join an organization, as well as charges based on car use. Auto-sharing companies offer different rate packages designed to cover a variety of driving situations.
"We try to adapt to the needs of people in order to keep them as members," says Mr. Robert, president of CommunAuto Inc., which operates the Montreal and Quebec City services.
Before launching the Quebec City service, he studied 15 different organizations in Europe as part of his masters degree program at University of Laval.
Together the Montreal and Quebec City services have more than 1,300 subscribers and 77 cars.
The much younger Toronto program is at the other end of the scale. "We have nine cars, but our goal is world domination," chuckles AutoShare's Ms. Reynolds. Her organization has 140 subscribers.
Here's a look at how the charges break down in AutoShare's program:
- A $500 refundable membership fee. It's generally applied to the financing of the cars and will be returned if you leave the company;
- A $10 key deposit;
- A $20 application processing charge.
Then you select one of three driving packages.
The casual driver package -- recommended for those who drive fewer than 1,000 kilometres a year -- has an access fee of $5 a month and trip fees of 40¢ a kilometre and $2 an hour.
Those who drive between 1,000 km and 5,000 km a year can opt for the regular driver package, which has a $20 a month access fee, and trip fees of 25¢ a kilometre and $2 an hour.
A frequent driver is one who travels more that 5,000 kms a year. The access fee here is $40 a month and trip fees are 20¢ a kilometre and $2 an hour.
Insurance, gas and maintenance costs are included. Special arrangements can be made for longer weekend trips. If you're unsure of what plan suits you best, AutoShare suggests the regular package until you can assess your needs.
Once you've joined you can reserve a car by calling (car-share operations offer round-the-clock reservation services) and booking the vehicle for the specific time you have in mind.
The cars are picked up from, and returned to, specific locations, such as municipal parking lots, in the case of Toronto's operation.
When you're finished with the vehicle, you fill out a trip log to track the time and distance; also you can note any maintenance that may be required.
What about getting a car when you want it?
Ms. Reynolds' operation boasts a 90% to 95% success rate, and "we want to keep that. We don't want people to get frustrated because they can get a car when they want it," she says.
Jane Marvy, a Toronto teaching assistant and one of AutoShares' customers, hasn't owned a car for some time. But there are instances when she needs one, such as picking up a relative from the airport -- miles from her downtown home or buying groceries in bulk. That's when she turns to AutoShare.
"It's probably the closest I'll come to having a car of my own. It's most convenient," she says.
Car share supporters say that people who have belonged to a sharing program for only a year change their driving patterns.
Their overall driving drops by as much as 50%, "but they don't feel a loss of mobility," says Ms. Reynolds. The drop in usage is likely the result of having to pay fees for each outing.
Although car-sharing companies are looking at suburban and even rural applications, the idea works best in heavily populated cities' downtown cores where parking is difficult to find and expensive.
"Most of our customers are professionals who used to have a car and just don't want to have one anymore -- not for environmental reasons but because they weren't using them enough to justify them," Mr. Robert says.
The suburban application, car share promoters say, may evolve because of need for a second or third car. Instead of buying, sharing might be seen as an option.
As Mr. Robert notes, car sharing today is a "marginal service. We have to start small. We have to prove it works," he says. But at his Montreal company, there is a one-month wait to register.
With that kind of demand, it may not be long before marginal turns into mainstream.
National Post newspaper online
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