12 September 2008

Car Sharing Services

This is my obligatory idealistic, one-idea-will-save-the-world post of the week.

And, this idea is not new, it's done elsewhere, and I am sure I have seen it somewhere in the Bermuda Blogosphere before.

I think Bermuda would benefit from a commercial car-sharing service, along the lines of ZipCar, which operates in many US cities.

Here's the idea: you join the service, which owns a fleet of cars. Each car has its own assigned parking spot, at various locations or neighborhoods in the Island. The service maintains and insures the cars, you pay a monthly fee that entitles you to a certain amount of time to use the car (or vehicle, imagine mini-vans).

You sign up for time using an on-line service, e.g. Saturday morning 8am to 1pm, rock up to the parking space, pick up the car, and drop it off when you are done.

The advantages are low hassle for you; a guaranteed parking spot in a useful space; fewer cars in total on the Island; and you can probably even afford to buy time on the service as opposed to buying a car... I know that in general many people without children on this Island don't own a car, but this is a service that I would use and pay for, and which would make me even less likely to purchase a car,

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It also offers people the flexibility to use different styles of cars when needed. Ie, a small truck or van when moving things.

Would be excellent and is something I've been hoping to see for years, but unfortunately it takes changes in legislation to become a reality and frankly, like many things that could make a big differents, it just isn't high on the priority list.