Thursday, May 14, 2009

Media! From Bikeshare to Carshare

This short film explores some differences of views between experts about an eventual new and very ambitious carsharing project currently being discussed in Paris for application by the city. It combines scenes showing some of the different ways that people getting around in the city these days, with expert commentary, all of which is aimed at a general audience and not just the usual insiders.

In other words, it engages complexity. Now that's a start!


This professional video clip has been prepared bringing together selected extracts from the film stock developed for a full length prime time television documentary of the United States Public Broadcasting System. You can access the full program directly from here at http://www.e2-series.com/, (then click Webcast, then Paris).

In this clip a group of on-the-spot Parisians discuss the eventual links between bikesharing (a field in which Paris is world leader) and carsharing (a field in which Paris has until now been a middling performer, but for which the mayor has some highly ambitious plans for something he calls Autolib.

The five minute video brings together the remarks of Céline Lepault and Denis Baupin of the city of Paris's crack mobility team, Nicolas le Douarec, co founder of the successful Mobizen carshare start-up, and Eric Britton of World Streets.

Is there a direct link from one to the other? Can your city hope to move smoothly from bikeshare to carshare (or vice versa)? Check out what each of these people on the spot has to say on the subject. As Denis Baupin, vice-mayor of the city and at the time in charge of mobility, tells us: it's a bit more complicated than you may at first believe. Welcome to the world.

* Check out from Bikeshare to Carshare here.

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4 comments:

  1. The success of the Barcelona equivalent of Velib, Bicing, has been very helpful for us at Avancar Carsharing. But there have been a few drawbacks to the system, and we find that more and more, we have to say: Yes, it's a bit like Bicing, but...

    1. The bad state of the bikes, partly through intensive use, partly through vandalism. People are coming to see the 'sharing' part as a low quality proposition. We have to explain that our cars do not necessarily suffer the same kind of treatment.

    2. The problem of availability: you never know if you will have a bike at the station next door, or a place to leave your bike at the end of the trip. We have to explain that our reservation system, although of course it needs an extra step of planning and booking your trip, at least then gives you the assurance of having the vehicle when you need it.

    I think urban carsharing systems as the one being proposed for Paris will need to work very hard to overcome those 2 issues. It would be interesting to know how Daimler is doing on these counts in its Car2Go experiments...

    Dirk Bogaert
    Barcelona, Spain

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nicolas le DouarecFriday, 15 May, 2009

    Our friend Nicolas le Douarec reminds us Liselec has been running one-way electric carsharing service in La Rochelle for years. Moreover this project, located in one of France’s outstanding new mobility innovators, is getting a major overhaul. You can see the present state of play at www.liselec.fr.

    More will follow.

    Nicolas le Douarec
    Paris France

    ReplyDelete
  3. In the national park “Hoge Veluwe”in the Netherlands a free public bike system is functioning now for many years. As the area is a closed reservate only control of bikes is needed at the gates. Total amount of bikes about 1700. There a several parkings at different gates and at attractions in the park. See www.hogeveluwe.nl/page.asp?id=109 for more info.

    It is in dutch but with google translate you might get the picture.

    Kind regards

    Ton Daggers
    IBC MOVILIZATION
    3582 BM Utrecht
    the Netherlands

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you for the note on this White Bike program of sorts in the Netherlands National Park Ton. CityRyde is of course aware of the program but very interested in any theft and/or vandalism statistics you might have aggregated over the years on the program? Would you be willing to share?

    Jason Meinzer
    Bike Sharing Consultant
    www.CityRyde.com

    ReplyDelete

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