Zipcar offers car sharing options for CCU students, staff

Whether it's to run an errand to the store or take a trip down to the beach, Zipcar is giving Coastal Carolina University students more flexibility to get around.

Zipcar is a car-sharing program new this year to the campus. Students, faculty and staff ages 18 and older can purchase a $25 membership online. They will be given a key-card, and from there, they can rent a car for as little as $7.50 and hour, up to four days at a time for $69 a day.
It's an option students say they are glad to have.

"I'm in the PGM program at Coastal and traveling around to a lot of golf courses takes up a lot of time," says freshman Ryan Howard.
With an electric car option, the University says the partnership with Zipcar compliments the school's sustainability program and cuts down on traffic.
"We want to be a walking campus, especially within our core," says Sandy Baldridge, the manager of Contractual & Business Services. "This helps by now requiring as many students to bring their vehicles to campus as well as our faculty and staff."

Zipcar has already partnered with hundreds of other Universities across the country. The two cars came in last Monday when school started, and while no one has rented them so far, CCU says membership requests are in already in high demand. You don't need to be a CCU student to rent a vehicle. Anyone with a Zipcar membership can take advantage of the program.

Source: WMBF, by Theo Hayes, August 27, 2103

Zipcar launches car-sharing service in Denver

Car-sharing service Zipcar is launching in Denver.
The announcement furthers a trend that has seen multiple car-sharing services launching in Denver in recent years.

"The city of Denver has long been a leader in sustainability, so we're thrilled to now bring our 'wheels when you want them' to the Mile High City," said Mark Norman, president of Zipcar.

According to Norman, more than 30 Zipcars can be reserved from a minute up to a year in advance, for as short as an hour or for multiple days.
Seven Zipcars will be parked in curbside spots in the downtown area. In addition, other Zipcars will be parked at centrally located private lots and garages throughout the city and Denver International Airport.
"We are very excited to welcome Zipcar to Denver," said Jose Cornejo, manager of Denver Public Works.

Among the cars available are the Ford Escape, Toyota Prius and Mazda 3 Hatchback.
Car sharing has recently been gaining momentum in Denver, as well as the nation. eGo CarShare came to Denver in 2009, about the same time as Evergreen-based Occasional Car. Car2Go came to the city in June.
With the launch of Zipcar on Thursday, the firm now provides service both in Denver and Fort Collins.

Source: The Denver Post, by Howard Pankratz, August 1, 2013

Car-sharing app Lyft may find hurdles in Minneapolis

Lyft, a car-sharing app that has spurred regulatory fights and taxi protests in cities across the country, could encounter similar obstacles in Minneapolis.
The San Francisco-based company connects willing drivers and would-be passengers via a free smartphone app. It isn’t operating in Minneapolis just yet but is already soliciting drivers on Facebook and other social media sites.
“Join the Lyft community and earn up to $20/hr while meeting great people around Minneapolis,” reads an online ad from the company, beside a photo of a car bearing one of Lyft’s signature pink mustaches.

Minneapolis’ head of business licensing, Grant Wilson, believes Lyft drivers would need licenses in order to operate in the city. He said Minneapolis has not been contacted by the company, however, nor has the city discovered Lyft operating.

Obtaining taxi licenses would run against Lyft’s business model, which relies on easily signing up people with a vehicle and time to drive. Lyft’s website says drivers must be 23 years old and pass through a phone screening, in-person meeting and background checks.

Lyft, which is now live in six U.S. cities, said it has not determined a launch date for Minneapolis.
“As we always do, we will review all city and state regulations prior to launch,” Lyft spokeswoman Erin Simpson said in a statement. She noted that California regulators have recently proposed rules to accommodate services such as Lyft, as long as they adhere to certain safety and liability requirements.
Minneapolis City Council Member Gary Schiff, the council’s authority on taxicab ordinances, said licensing taxis is important to ensure that drivers are not fugitives, that vehicles are inspected, and that consumers can lodge complaints.
That means licensing drivers and the company itself, regularly inspecting the vehicles and installing meters.
“It’s a little dumbfounding to me that this start-up company has this business model that leads them to get into fights with cities all across the country,” Schiff said.

“I don’t know what they’re thinking. It’s a very basic accepted piece of regulation for every city in the country to regulate driving services.”
St. Paul may be a different story. Licensing Inspector Tom Ferrara said licensing requirements depend on whether there is a meter in the vehicle, per city ordinance.
“If there was no taxi meter, we would not require them to have a license,” Ferrara said. St. Paul has not, however, been contacted by Lyft.
Rather than a meter, Lyft’s model relies on a suggested “donation” that appears on the passenger’s smartphone at the conclusion of the ride. The donation is “voluntary” and can be adjusted, according to the company’s website.

A similar app
Lyft isn’t the only smartphone car-sharing app expanding into the Twin Cities. Another popular national service, Uber, began operations in Minneapolis last year.
A key difference? Uber’s Minneapolis general manager, James Ondrey, said the app only partners with limousines and sport-utility vehicles that are licensed through the state Department of Transportation.
Still more apps have made it easier to hail a traditional taxi around town. TaxiMagic and a new app, iHail, use GPS to connect people with licensed taxis in the area without calling a dispatcher.

Source: StarTribune, by Eric Roper, August 5, 2013

RelayRides Launches Airport Parking And Car-Sharing Service

RelayRides is launching a new airport parking and car sharing service, after recently launching car sharing at airports.
The move brings it into direct competition with Y Combinator startup FlightCar, which also provides a peer-to-peer parking and car sharing service.
Moving into airports makes sense for RelayRides, because airports provide larger transactions since people rent cars longer than other transactions. For comparison, the $25 billion traditional car rental industry is made up of about half done at airports–which shows how big the market is.

With RelayRides’ airport rentals, the average rental length is 6.5 days and $300 per transaction. With regular car shares, people tend to just be on shorter day trips. RelayRides believes that the airport business–including its original car sharing at airports and its new parking service–will be the majority of its business within six to eight months.
Adding the airport service and emphasizing weekly over hourly or daily rentals has resulted in RelayRides expecting a 50% increase in revenue in July compared to June and its largest revenue month ever.
About a month ago RelayRides added the ability for car owners to list cars at airports nationwide. That made it possible for car owners to choose which airports they would show up in searches for. It also allowed travelers to search for cars at airports. Prior to that people had to put manually the airport in the description of the car but they were hard to find.. Now the airport listings has 2,000 cars in 180 airports.
But with that service, car owners still have to drive to the airport to give the car to travelers.
With the new service launching today–first only at San Francisco International–car owners don’t drive to the airport to hand off their cars. Instead car owners use RelayRides as a free substitute for long-term airport parking when they travel. The cars are then shared with travelers coming to that airport. In essence, RelayRides is getting into the parking business.
So Bay Area travelers can drive to Millbrae (the city next to the airport) to get free parking and drop off their cars at RelayRide’s parking lot next to the Westin and Loft hotels. They get a shuttle to the airport and save because they don’t have to pay for parking–compared to the typical $15 per day for long term parking. However, they don’t get paid for renting out their cars through RelayRides as they do in the traditional RelayRides car sharing. RelayRides also provides a exterior car wash and interior cleaning.
For car renters, the new service should provide cars that are 40% cheaper than traditional car rental service.
As for regulations in airports, which have been a problem for competitor FlightCar, RelayRides says it is compliant with SFO’s rules. However, the company hasn’t talked to SFO officials to be sure. First, SFO does not allow businesses to send their own car service from a lot to the airport. RelayRides gets around this by putting its passengers on hotel shuttle buses, which are already licensed to drive to the airport, said Aaron Platshon, head of strategic products at RelayRides.
Secondly, SFO doesn’t allow rental car services stationed off-airport to deliver customers directly to the airport. They have to go to a car rental center–which triggers a $20 charge per customer. But RelayRides believes that because it uses existing shuttles to the airport it is not required to pay that $20 charge.
Finally, SFO charges companies that primarily serve airport customers a “concession fee.” Different business such as restaurants, hotels and rental car companies pay different fees. The fee for off-airport car rental is 10% of revenue. “We will comply with that,” Platshon said.
A SFO spokesman said that RelayRides has contacted them but that the company has not been licensed to operate at the airport.
FlightCar was sued by San Francisco for operating at SFO without a license and not paying fees that they say are owed.
RelayRides’ airport service doesn’t fit neatly into categories of either a parking company or a rental car company. That’s because it provides car parking for people departing from the airport, but provides those cars through car sharing to travelers who arrive at the airport. “We are not a car rental company,” said Platshon. “It’s hard because they have regulations based on history and precedent and there’s no bucket you neatly fit into. We’re a car sharing marketplace augmented with a parking lot with this service.”
RelayRides, which recently acquired competitor Wheelz, plans to scale this parking/car-sharing service quickly to other airports. The company recently stopped operating in New York after the state said it was not in compliance with insurance laws.

Source: FORBES, by Tomio Geron, July 30, 2013