In addition to the country review that are appearing in these pages in the weeks ahead, you may be interested to know that we have developed some tools that permit you to dig deeper and faster. Here are four you may wish to check out for your own research purposes.
No problem. Get comfortable, pour yourself a cup of coffee and take a bit of time to investigate . . .
1. All World Streets articles on carsharing – http://tinyurl.com/ws-carsharing This calls up all articles that have appeared in the pages of World Streets since opening day of the publication in 2 March 2009.
2. The World Carshare Consortium at http://www.worldcarshare.com The Consortium is the special monitoring and exchange program to group the information and expertise of carshare groups, concerned public agencies and researchers since 1994. the site if very very large and rather difficult to navigate, but there is a search function on the lower left menu that you may find useful.
3. Search World Carshare's member forum - http://tinyurl.com/wcs-messages More than three thousand postings but the people and groups who know most about carsharing on the planet. You have to be a member of the WCS forum to make this work, but that's no problem. Just send a quick email to the editor here – editor@worldstreets.org and it will be done
.
4. Search New Mobility Knowledge Base at http://tinyurl.com/kn-carshare. This combined search engine has been created by the New Mobility Partnerships in 2008/9 as part of a knowledge building, silo-bridging project in cooperation with a team of researchers from the University of Michigan, and is specifically intended to help policy makers, local government, researchers, NGOs, activists, consultants, concerned citizens and the media keep up efficiently with the work and activities of the leading international groups, programs and sources leading the field of sustainable transport and sustainable cities worldwide. This setting of the search engine is tuned to search for all references relating to carsharing. The search scans a collection of carefully screened and selected sources, which at this point covers 626 programs and sources worldwide. (See (http://knowledge.newmobility.org for background on this search engine and the program behind it..)
(Careful here: this will call up more than 500 references so you may want to think about narrowing your search to a country, city, supplier, whatever. For that drop to the bottom of the page and try "Search within results". You'll see.)
As you will quickly see this is an existing, fast-developing and thoroughly 
practical transportation innovation that is ready to go. It is a key component of the path to sustainable transport, sustainable cities and sustainable lives. (It is also cool, economic and a great way to meet nice people)
She can do it. I can do it. You can do it. So . . . let's do it.
Eric Britton,
Editor (and still pushing)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Want to know more on carsharing around the world?
All you have to do is push here.
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I am a Pakistani living in Germany. I have used the CarSharing services in Germany a lot and would love to have one in Pakistan. However, there is a big fear of personal security when traveling with unknown drivers.
ReplyDeleteI have discussed this issue in my former Pakistani University's Alumni discussion board and we have come up with a plan. My University is located in Lahore and there is a very luxurious highway from Lahore to Islamabad (the capital). A lot of people regularly travel between these cities.
We are thinking of starting a limited CarSharing service among our Alumni and students (1000s of ppl). The benefit is that we can put a check on membership and verify that only students and Alumni join the website and post their offers and needs. Later on, if successful, we can include other colleges, and who knows. Some guys are ready to help me in development.
What we need now is a software that we can run on a website which allows people to give their offers and needs. They could also give their intermediate stops and prove more useful. I have searched on the Internet but have found nothing. Do you know any such software or website, which we can reuse to start our little adventure?
All help will be appreciated,
Yasir N. Khan
Blog: http://yasirniaz.blogspot.com
Hello Yasir,
ReplyDeleteDon't be in too much of a hurry to jump on technology in your situation. There are 3 applications where technology might be considered: providing access to the car, scheduling/reservation system - and (usually associated with the reservation system is) the membership and billing system. In the west we tend to think that it must be automated but, as with many things east and west, this is an assumption that should be considered carefully in designing your business model.
- labor is much less expensive in Pakistan so some of the functions European or North American systems might automate can reliably be performed by people - including vehicle access and reservations. (It's worth noting that until 2009 both Autoshare and Cooperative Auto Network in Canada only had computer reservation systems but continued with lockbox technology to provide the vehicle key to the member.)
- internet reservation systems assume all members have access to a computer with web. And even if they do, you still need to provide telephone emergency contact/reservations
- there is at least one car computer that provides access via mobile phone rather than RFID card
Another function you may want to (need to?) consider is vehicle security - GPS tracking etc. Most of the car computer boxes have this options: Invers.com and Convadis.ch
I like your idea of limiting access to the system to college alumni. You might consider expanding the concept that the way new members outside the alumni group could join is by being recommended by an existing member (after some time period membership).
Dave Brook
Portland, Oregon
www.carsharing.us