Transport: Electric Car Pool

Localnet will encourage the use of electric cars by making these available at each LocalHub for residents to use as needed.

This section discusses:

Existing Provision

What

For most families, especially in the countryside, two cars are almost essential these days - even though one of these may sit idle for days, there is often no practical alternative to having it available.

Only in congested city centres do we find many people willing to forego a car altogether.

How

Hiring a car at all is still a cumbersome process for all bar the seasoned business traveller (who, with his “Gold” membership calmly walks straight to his waiting vehicle). For most of us, just getting to somewhere we can pick up or drop off a hire car, in itself requires a car journey.

Only in cities like Manhattan and London is it commonplace to forego car ownership at all and use Hertz or Avis when a car is needed. More recently, technology advances have allowed unattended car pickup spots to operate. Waving a passkey at a car parked in a known location, members of such schemes can jump in and drive a car away from many spots around our larger cities. Electric vehicles are still a novelty and pose particular problems with range and the need to recharge them fully before someone else uses them.

A recent advance in cycle hire is also worth noting. In Paris, and now London, one can use a credit card to pay for the hire of a bicycle from an automated rack where several (hopefully) have been left by others. One pays by the hour and can leave the bicycle back at this rack or at any one of the many other rental locations around the city. Fleets of vans continually bring bicycles back from those racks with a net influx of bicycles to those where they are continually running out.

Volume and Frequency

The hassle involved in hiring a car means that few do it - and they can because they don't have to do it often. Anyone who needs a car more than several times a year is still likely to own one instead.

Financial Model

With fuel prices, road fuel tax and insurance rising, there are already many incentives to do with one car less than we have today – but the convenience of that car readily to hand is a powerful argument for hanging on to it.

Providers

The major car rental companies like Hertz and Avis are now being joined by car sharing and pooling specialists working mainly in large city centres.

Trends

The closure of branch railways, the reduction in bus routes and frequency plus the greater affordability of cars have led to car ownership growing over several decades. Although increasing fuel costs, road taxes and environmental concerns are now working to reverse this trend, having grown used to the convenience of having a car always available, most people will be reluctant to give up their car unless the alternative is as flexible and reliable.

With Localnet

What

Every LocalHub will have a pool of small electric cars available for hire by the hour or by the day. A vehicle can be pre-booked up to 8pm the night before it is needed and the hirer can travel to and from the LocalHub in the OmniVan.

How

Each Localnet hub will inevitably be equipped with recharging points for its electric delivery vans. It’s therefore a small incremental cost to add a few extra charging points. Providing a small number of electric cars – several two-seaters plus a couple of four-seaters – at each hub makes them a very convenient car rental location. You can walk or catch the delivery van to the hub, pick up a car from the pool using your localnet card and drive off. The rental charge will appear as a line item on your monthly bill. Rentals can be booked in advance and paid for by the day or by the hour. Using electric power, the price per mile is so low as to be covered in the standard hourly or daily rates rather than billed separately.

Because each hub has such cars, it’s not a problem to take a one way trip – say, to stay with a relative for a few days. Simply use the delivery vans at each end to get between house and hub. If you need to go further than the range of the car you can simply swap it or its BatteryBox for a fully charged one at a hub en route. The booking service will automatically instruct you if this is needed and include the intermediate hub on your directions and in the travel estimates it gives you.

The electric cars are designed so as:

This latter point allows the larger delivery vehicles that travel between LocalHubs to carry up to three such cars on their top deck while still carrying passengers and/or goods containers beneath them. These vehicles can efficiently relocate cars to the LocalHub where they are to be hired from the following morning.

Volume and Frequency

The increased convenience of this hire scheme in comparison to existing ones should make it attractive even to those who need a car more than once a week.

Financial Model

It is easy to add further incentives to encourage residents to reduce their number of cars – or at least to convert to more efficient cars or to hybrid or electric ones. There are two simple approaches:

As car-pools become fully booked, the system can start trying to relocate other cars to the hub but would only do so against a provisional booking or waitlist scheme. Your position on the waitlist could be determined by whether or not your family owns one or more other cars.

Taking these ideas to the limit leads to a points system based on the number of people in your household – and potentially their ages, need to travel and possession of a driving license - plus the number and types of cars you own. Your point score determines how far in advance you can book, the rate you are offered and your position on any wait list.

There may be a small side opportunity for those in the neighbourhood with time on their hands and a clean driving license to deliver and collect cars from individual properties. If a family has a lot of luggage to load, it is certainly easier to do so at the door rather than take it all to the LocalHub. On the other hand, such journeys tend to be much longer and it is only a relatively small detour to drive back home from the LocalHub to load up before heading off.

Providers

Existing car hire companies could provide the cars but it may make more sense for localnet to work with some of the more flexible car-pooling/sharing companies which have less already invested in existing car hire infrastructure.

Evolution

A really well stocked car-pool could, over time, encourage more and more people to live without any car rather than simply limit themselves to one instead of two.

 

Comparison

The table below assesses the impact of localnet on this service on a scale of -5 to +5 (details here)

  Existing services As part of localnet Score
Scope Any car hire on daily/hourly basis impractical for many at present. Let alone electric vehicles. Everyone has access to a fully charged electric vehicle on demand. +4
Frequency Typically only used occasionally. Practical multiple times a week. +3
Security Not applicable. Not applicable. 0
Convenience Many miles to pickup for most. Need car to get there. Pickup point in every LocalHub. Direct feeder service to it. +4
Cost Low volume of electric cars makes them expensive. Costs shared over many more users. Charging points marginal extra cost. +2
Quality Service patchy. Short notice rentals often difficult. Consistent ability to hire at a few hours' notice. +2
Carbon Footprint Most hire vehicles petrol, some hybrid. All electric. +4
Time Paperwork, billing, pick-up and drop-off. No to negligible extra paperwork and billing. Local pick-up and drop-off. +3
Resources Used Every extra car bought uses resources. More shared use of fewer cars. +3
Reuse & Recycling Every car bought has to be scrapped. Battery packs recycled. Modular car design for longer life and upgrade rather than scrap. +3
Landfill Waste Every car bought has to be scrapped. Modular car design for longer life and upgrade rather than scrap. +3
Other Differentiators Owning a car has base level cost (and hassle) of road tax and insurance on top of the cost of the car itself. Poorer families who could not afford a car can still afford to hire one occasionally. +3

Services