[sustran] Re: distance based fuel tax technology test

[Chris Bradshaw]

[Sorry to resuscitate this stale item, but I am a new participant and didn't
start reading messages until tonight.]

The situation Singapore is trying to address is the same as all cities.  But
Singapore has taken it more seriously, and created well-regarded major
measures.

It is interesting, therefore, to hear they are thinking of a major
adjustment.

Keeping in that spirit, I would like to ask whether carsharing has come to
Singapore yet?  I seem to remember some info that it has.

Either way, it could provide the solution without the authoritarian measures
of quotas and the high-tech costs of road pricing.  And unlike the present
system, it will reduce parking demand further and will reduce inequitable
car distribution across all social classes.

Carsharing is a form of car-rental that specializes in trips from 1-12 hours
long.  It locates cars around at parking spaces and requires users to take
out a membership and pay a refundable deposit up front.  Rates include gas
and all insurance, and billing is done once a month.

It is most common in Europe and North America, where it functions as
companies or cooperatives, without any government subsidies or other
advantages.  It is offered in very few "sprawlish" suburbs, preferring the
high parking costs,  the small household sizes, the strong main-street
shopping, and the good transit of older, high-density neighbourhoods.

With a strong government sponsorship, it could overcome this limitation and
could also complement transit by being used for commuter ridesharing, thus
ensuring the cars "followed" members to their places of work each day, so
they could be used for work and personal trips there.  And this would also
take pressure off the transit system to provide for trips between two
low-density areas (which either most transit systems ignore or requires high
subsidies).

The magic of carsharing is that it transfers the fixed costs of
car-ownership (including parking between trips) to variable costs.  The
higher the fixed costs, the higher the resulting variable fees.  It
therefore has just the effect Paul is promoting: each additional hour-of-use
or kilometre-driven is felt in the pocketbook.  There is no way the users
can "bury" their high fixed ownership costs as "lifestyle" and forget about
it (leaving variable costs ridiculously low).

So how about it?

Chris Bradshaw
Ottawa, Canada

p.s., I am co-owner/-manager of Vrtucar, Ottawa's Carsharing organization