The Car Club debate has generated some interesting issues and some are questioning why we haven't invited car club operators to contribute. We have!
I expect some are biding their time to respond but hope to have some comments from car club operators soon. There are car clubs planned in residential developments in Harrow in the near future and these will be seen as test cases to determine how borough wide car clubs would operate and what the merits are of them.
However, your opinion matters! So far the pendulum is swinging more against car clubs than for, which is fine if it represents how you feel. Keep the comments coming and here's an even more livelier debate soon.
4 comments:
Hi. My name's Jonathan and I'm the Head of Strategic Marketing at Streetcar.
Just had a chance to catch up on this and I find the comments absolutely fascinating! I hope they keep coming.
The original post seems to plant a seed of suggestion that Car Clubs should be an alternative to travelling by bus, a theme picked up on by Michael, Derek, Anony-mous and others. This certainly isn't the case for our members, or our intentions when launching Streetcar.
Car clubs like Streetcar provide a sustainable alternative to owning a car. Because while we're never going to remove the occasional need for a car (Ikea, weekend breaks, big shops, picking up the relatives), what we can erode is car-dependence. With a car sitting in your drive, it's far too tempting to jump in it whenever you need to travel - the 'you've already paid for it, you may as well use it' mentality. Streetcar is priced on a pay-as-you-go basis (like buses, tubes, taxis) so when you need to get from A to B to A, you can think more rationally about whether you really need a car or not.
The amazing thing is that it really does work. We've found that our members use a car around 66% less than before they joined. And (while it may surprise Peter) many people have given up their cars to join a car club. Which explains why every study (unless I've missed one) of car-dependence and car clubs has shown that putting one car club on the streets takes at least 6 and up to 20 normal cars off the road.
Do car clubs only work in city centres? Anony-mous suggests that in areas like Harrow, where public transport, bikes and feet are well-used, car-clubs are a misfit. But in fact the only reason car-clubs do work in city centres is because public transport is so well used. Indeed we've seen some of the most positive response to our idea in more suburban areas such as Herne Hill, Wimbledon, even Maidstone in Kent.
That sort of explains the maths. We have 30,000 members and 800 cars. If our cars were anything more than a supplement to public transport for when a car is required, we'd be in trouble.
As it is we put a lot of time and effort into helping people and councils make a positive behavioural change away from car-dependence. We give all our members 90-days to try the service for free, because we know that it's tricky to give up a car, and on the face of it shared cars with computers inside connected by text-messages sounds like a very strange idea. But 99% of the time it works.
I hope this answers some questions, and provokes some more vibrant discussion. In summary: busses are great, and car clubs are great when busses don't cut it!
I actually have dealt with Streetcar before and feel their people on the street (or riding the streets in some cases) seem to know what they are talking about and whereas Jonathan obviously has a vested interest in promoting his company and car clubs, it’s also apparent that these schemes don’t actually offer much benefit to the environment since when they were thought through there were no processes in place to introduce environmentally friendly cars into car clubs. I’m sure a car club operator will jump on me for this as some now do have environmentally friendly options, but surely it should be a standard so they can help push the notion that every car on the road is at least damaging the environment to the least extent as possible. Also if Jonathan does not push his car club as an alternate to public transport or to its users, perhaps he should look into where his marketers are placed (outside central London tube stations targeting commuters and people already using public transport) instead of traffic jams or football matches.
Not singling out Streetcar as other operators also do promote car clubs as an alternative to any form of transport and sell the benefits as “having your own car without the running costs” which obviously does focus on the car culture and promotes it.
If car clubs wanted to seriously impact current car drivers and get them to switch to car club vehicles they would:
1) Have strong marketing material focusing on the environmental benefits and this being the reason to switch
2) backing this up with the company’s own organisational efforts towards reducing their carbon footprint and stating how other forms of travel are greener but if a car is essential then use a car club
3) Wholly focus their efforts on selling to those who currently have vehicles and drive everywhere rather than taking the weekly Ikea trip away from occasional car drivers who otherwise use public transport (and what are the implications of bundling Ikea stock in a car club car – who pays if the car is scratched or damaged? So not the best suggestion for use of a car club car, Jon).
Car clubs in flats as a forced-upon replacement for car spaces is fine – as long as they are only occupied by car club cars so they, with time, encourage those residents to switch from a personal car to a car club car. But this isn’t the only market being targeted is it? It’s anyone and everyone because the more car club users and members, the more the business booms and so the environmental argument is great at face value and as a door in, but does it hold up in their business model?
Short answer: No!
I actually have dealt with Streetcar before and feel their people on the street (or riding the streets in some cases) seem to know what they are talking about and whereas Jonathan obviously has a vested interest in promoting his company and car clubs, it’s also apparent that these schemes don’t actually offer much benefit to the environment since when they were thought through there were no processes in place to introduce environmentally friendly cars into car clubs. I’m sure a car club operator will jump on me for this as some now do have environmentally friendly options, but surely it should be a standard so they can help push the notion that every car on the road is at least damaging the environment to the least extent as possible. Also if Jonathan does not push his car club as an alternate to public transport or to its users, perhaps he should look into where his marketers are placed (outside central London tube stations targeting commuters and people already using public transport) instead of traffic jams or football matches.
Not singling out Streetcar as other operators also do promote car clubs as an alternative to any form of transport and sell the benefits as “having your own car without the running costs” which obviously does focus on the car culture and promotes it.
If car clubs wanted to seriously impact current car drivers and get them to switch to car club vehicles they would:
1) Have strong marketing material focusing on the environmental benefits and this being the reason to switch
2) backing this up with the company’s own organisational efforts towards reducing their carbon footprint and stating how other forms of travel are greener but if a car is essential then use a car club
3) Wholly focus their efforts on selling to those who currently have vehicles and drive everywhere rather than taking the weekly Ikea trip away from occasional car drivers who otherwise use public transport (and what are the implications of bundling Ikea stock in a car club car – who pays if the car is scratched or damaged? So not the best suggestion for use of a car club car, Jon).
Car clubs in flats as a forced-upon replacement for car spaces is fine – as long as they are only occupied by car club cars so they, with time, encourage those residents to switch from a personal car to a car club car. But this isn’t the only market being targeted is it? It’s anyone and everyone because the more car club users and members, the more the business booms and so the environmental argument is great at face value and as a door in, but does it hold up in their business model?
Short answer: No!
All comments relating to this have been moved to THE BIG CAR CLUB DEBATE original post so that all arguments are seen on one page.
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