[sustran] Is carsharing irrelevant for the Global South?

[Eric Britton]

This is a brilliant project idea Madhav. I very much hope that EMBARQ or
some other investigator or group will get behind this. It would be a fine
contribution for transport policy in India, opening up the debate in a
friendly and positive way concerning what it means to have and use a car. It
would also, I am sure, serve as a leading example to encourage others to do
the same. 

 

The idea behind the New Mobility approach is that there are many ways of
skinning the  cat of un-sustainable transport (also known as Old Mobility)
and we need to know more about every one. Then when we understand them
better, we can begin to stitch them together in different combination and
different ways for different people and different cites. (Who said that
sustainable transportation was supposed to be easy.)

 

I am sure that I am not the only one here who will support this idea.

 

Eric Britton

 

 

A form of car sharing in India very prevalent. 

 

In most cities you can rent a car/with a driver (half day: 4 hours), full

day: 8-12 hours, few days even a few months). The cars are available in all
sizes small sedans to mini vans. The rates are pretty much fixed across the
country. It usually starts at 4 Hours, 40 Kms is 400 Rs (10

USD) for a low small sedan. 

 

Car ownership may vary between from one car (owner/driver) to a few thousand
cars. 

There is also an increasing number of fleet managers. That take these cars
from individual owners/drivers, use technology elements (GPS tracking), call
center etc and make them available to offices/companies.

 

 

Would you call this car sharing?

 

It would be interesting to study if the availability of these cars

- prevent people from buying cars

- do they end up buying smaller cars for city use and renting these bigger
cars for long trips

- what percentage of car use in our cities are these shared cars?

- if one these large companies could transform themselves into membership
based car sharing entities.

 

 

Sincerely;

Madhav Pai

Technical Director

EMBARQ - India