Car co-ops: was Re: [sustran] intro

[Tracey Axelsson]

Hi Rahman!

I was actually contacted by people putting things together in Singapore for
information - as have people in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.  As I have visited
all of these countries I feel confident in my assessment that car sharing
will work anywhere!  Japan has an amazing system to get a car.  First you
must prove you have a parking spot, then you can only own the beast for five
years (their cast off cars head to Australia or become new land :-().
Singapore actually has a auction-lottery for driving permits - only so many
being granted every year and the ability to drive truly goes to the highest
bidder.  They'd like to tackle the social inequities of this system.  And
for anyone who may think Bangkok is the worst spot for air pollution in the
world - please go to Taipei.  I had to walk around that beautiful city with
a wet towel over my mouth which I never had to do in Bangkok or Hong Kong
for that matter.

I've also been interviewed quite extensively by the folks in Portland Oregon
interested in developing a business plan for their city.  Meanwhile, Marty
Bernard is putting together a Station Car in California which runs a lot
like the "Tulip system" in France.  These systems allow people to use a
credit card to access the cars.  Our co-op and the one in Victoria are
not-for-profit co-operatives, while the ones in Quebec City and Montreal are
sole proprietor businesses (Quebec's Auto-Com switched over from a
co-operative). Car Co-ops are on the drawing board in Toronto and in Ottawa
though only the four Canadian ones are operational.

I suppose my point is that car sharing is taking off everywhere.  It makes
so much sense and is a real answer to slowing the proliferation of
automobiles.  Of our 27 members; 6 sold cars and 11 others decided not to
buy!  And the members are using the cars less all the time!  This is good
news and there's more to learn and do.

I recently had this quote pointed out to me:

"I'm proposing that all forms of transportation need to be
 master planned as a single system.  Cars are here to 
stay, because they give a degree of personal mobility.  
But the idea that we should own a car is an old-fashioned 
idea left over from the 20th century.   In the 21st 
century, we will treat the car as a utility, use it and 
dispose of it when we don't need it."

 Moshe Safdie, (Architect
 of hundreds of buildings world-wide esp. the Vancouver Public Library)
commenting on his up-coming book
"The City After the Automobile"
The Globe & Mail - 26/04/97


It seems to me car sharing is following the 100 monkeys principle.
Researchers noted that when a monkey invented a new way of doing something,
she would show it to another, who would show it to another and so on until
the 100 monkey just knew how to do it without being shown.  It just became
standard knowledge and practise.  Well, 3 brothers in Berlin started showing
others and now we have this *spontaneous* comment from Safdie....

I think in time car sharing will become very common - who knows maybe even
the majority!

Cheers,  Tracey! 

At 13:25 13/05/97 +0800, you wrote:
>Tracey Axelson said:
>>Car sharing is an organized system of shared car ownership,  access and
>>cost, in a 1-car-to-10 person ratio.  It enhances both the social and
>>economic well-being of the individual and the community.
>.......
>>The economics of auto
>>ownership as it now stands reinforces the separation of car costs into two
>>realms:  the cost of owning and the cost of using.  This means after
>>financing the sticker price, buying insurance, tires, and parking, plus
>>paying any maintenance bills, the owner dissociates these expenses and
>>thinks getting to the hockey game will cost only the gas to get there and
>>parking if he can't find a free spot.
>
>You may be interested to hear that Singapore has very recently started to
>experiment with the car-sharing/car-cooperatives idea.  I seem to have lost
>the newspaper cutting on this. But apparently the trades union congress is
>taking a lead on it and they sent a team to Europe and Britain to examine
>the successful schemes there.
>
>I don't have details but their motivations seem to be two-fold.
>1.  Singapore's Land Transport Authority is concerned that having made the
>"sunk costs" of car ownership incredibly high they have inadvertently given
>car owners a big incentive to use their expensice asset as much as
>possible. So they are now trialing electronic road-pricing to get more of
>the costs into the usage.They may see car-cooperatives as another way of
>charging for usage rather than for ownership.
>2.  Singapore's middle class is getting frustrated that cars are so
>expensive. So this car coop. idea may be one way the government hopes to
>satisfy the desire to give access to cars without causing an explosion in
>car use for commuting and congestion??
>
>It will be very interesting to see how this idea works in a situation of
>low car ownership.  Singapore has just over 100 cars per 1000 people,
>compared to about 400-450 in western European cities or 500 to 600 in many
>North American cities.
>
>Does anyone have details on the Singapore scheme? Are there any others in
>the region, say in Japan? Can car-cooperatives ever be a majority thing?
>
>A. Rahman Paul Barter
>Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific (SUSTRAN)
>c/- AP2000,  PO Box 12544,  50782 Kuala Lumpur,  Malaysia.
>Fax: +60 3 253 2361,  E-mail: tkpb at barter.pc.my
>
>
>
Tracey Axelsson  Executive Director
CAN Co-operative Auto Network     P.O. Box 47044, Denman   Vancouver, BC
V6G 3E1
*****Tel/Fax  685-1393   axelt at axionet.com      www.eagletree.com/think/can/