Car2go catching on
On-demand transportation catching on
ON THE ROAD Ubiquitous. That’s the best word to describe the proliferation of 400 tiny blue and white cars on Calgary roads.
Just over one year ago, car2go entered the city with 150 Smart Fortwo cars.
“Calgary is a very significant market in many ways,” says car2go spokesperson Katie Stafford. “It has been the fastest-growing car2go city in North America, and even worldwide.”
In late July 2012, car2go launched with 150 Smart cars. After two months, some 18,000 Calgarians had signed up to use the carsharing service.
“In Calgary, we were really one of the first and only large-scale car sharing companies, and (the almost instant popularity) indicates there was a need for this kind of service,” Stafford explains.
“People may not have realized they were missing it — but once the system was in place and available, people saw it as a vital transportation link.”
Car2go is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler — that’s right, the folks who manufacture the Smart car — and is a brand of Daimler Mobility Services.
“Car2go edition Smart Fortwo models are built for car2go and they are the first car to be manufactured specifically for car sharing,” Stafford says. “The cars are built at the factory with all of the additional car2go hardware installed — this includes the card reader in the windshield and the telematic touchscreen inside of the car.”
There are 21 cities around the world hosting car2go, and the service “provides an innovative mode of ‘on demand’ transportation, which complements existing public transportation alternatives by bridging the gaps commonly associated with the ‘first and last mile’ of a public transit commute”, to quote the company’s literature.
“What we see is a real combination of people using car2go,” Stafford says. “We see business professionals who may drive into downtown and park their cars — and then take a car2go to daily appointments.
“Then, there are people who live in the downtown core who don’t really want the responsibility of owning a car, and use transit, bike and walk as well as car2go to get around.”
She continues: “There are people who might commute by train, and use car2go when they get to the station, and there are people who simply maintain a membership and use car2go when their own vehicle is at the shop for service.”
Car2go, according to Stafford, also helps control parking and traffic congestion. The company pays an upfront fee to the city for parking, and car2go vehicles can park in any legal on-street parking space, within car2go’s 110 sq. km. home area.
The vehicles cannot park in spaces marked for valet, commercial, taxi or handicapped, but can be left in residential permit-only street spaces.
An initial one-time car2go membership fee costs $35 plus tax, and the vehicles are then available for $0.38 per minute with a $13.99 per hour maximum. Daily, the cars cost $72.99. After the initial explosion of interest, car2go brought another 250 cars to Calgary, and 35,000 members now share these vehicles.
Fleet management is an important part of the car2go system, and with 400 Smart Fortwo cars in Calgary, there is a permanent staff of 10 employees keeping the vehicles cleaned and fuelled. Part-time employees are on call during busy times.
Smart Centre Calgary Hyatt in downtown Calgary performs the majority of maintenance and service work on car2go vehicles.
“Typically, the cars are maintained once per year at the recommendation of Smart,” Stafford says. “Above and beyond regular routine maintenance, there are on occasion small unplanned maintenances performed, such as minor body repairs.
“That said, each time we refuel or clean the cars, our fleet teams check to ensure the cars are in good working order.”
Does having 400 Smart Fortwo cars in the city help increase sales at the local Mercedes-Benz/Smart dealerships?
“It certainly raises awareness of the Smart car,” Stafford says.
“We’ve heard anecdotally that some people come into the dealerships saying, ‘I’ve seen the blue and white cars around, can I get one here?’”
There are just over 3,000 car2go Smart cars in use in North America, and approximately 400,000 members worldwide.