1 April 2009 – Contract Hire News – smart car2go goes international
Regular readers of Contract Hire News may recall we brought you details of a new smart car-sharing initiative back in October 2008 that was being piloted by smart owners Daimler in Germany.
The initiative involved 500 Daimler employees and 200 members of their family and a fleet of 50 smart fortwo, which they had access to in and around the city of Ulm. The car2go scheme involved an initial free-registration that then enabled participants to have use of the smart fortwos that were parked around the city, whenever they wished.
Each driver was issued with a card reader that would unlock any available smart fortwo they wanted to use, and drivers were then charged a flat fee of 19 euros per minute to use it. This cost covered tax, mileage, fuel and insurance. If a smart fortwo was required for longer durations there were higher rates of 9.9 euros for an hour and 49 euros for a days usage.
Smart fortwos could be spontaneously taken from a parking space in the city, or pre-booked by phone, text or on-line. At the end of the journey the driver simply left the smart fortwo in a parking space within the car2go area, locked it and it was then ready for another driver to use.
The initial pilot amongst Daimler staff and family in Ulm has now been completed and has been such a success that even the car2go team at smart has been taken by surprise. Robert Henrich, the man responsible for project managing the car2go scheme at Daimler AG said: ‘The success of the first pilot phase surprised even us and shows how much importance already is attached to forward-looking mobility concepts today.
‘In just two weeks more than 500 customers had registered with car2go – a number we had not anticipated. Sometimes I could see from my office window how employees sprinted to the parking lot after work to get a car2go before they were all gone.’
Following the success of the initial pilot, the scheme has now been rolled out to all 120,000 residents of Ulm as well as persons visiting the town. The number of smart fortwos has been increased to 200 units, to cope with the increased demand for a smart car2go.
The next step will be for the smart car2go scheme to go international with Austin, Texas - population 750,000 - already lined up to take part. Car sharing schemes in America are already well established and are growing at a fast rate. The car2go team is confident that the scheme, which has many superior benefits over other car sharing programmes, will be a hit.
In Texas Daimler will repeat the 2-stage process that was successful in Ulm, with the car2go scheme available initially to a smaller group of residents, maybe be city employees, before the scheme is rolled out to the general population of the city.
The major of Austin is very much behind the smart car2go scheme: ‘We very much look forward to becoming the first international partner of car2go
‘Our city is known for its strong sense of environmental responsibility. car2go fits this wonderfully because we can then offer the residents of Austin an intelligent mobility concept with a high positive environmental factor. The project has our full support.’
The US pilot with 200 smart fortwo micro hybrid drive models will start this autumn.
More from Contract Hire News on the smart car2go scheme in coming months.
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