Loomio

Tactics on Mobilizing "Zipcar" & "Getaround" Members?

DH Daniel Hong Public Seen by 10

Car-sharing companies like "Zipcar" (http://www.zipcar.com) and "Getaround" (http://www.getaround.com) are getting increasingly popular as less people are owning their own vehicles. I think that they are an important population to reach out to when securing transportation.

Several questions I have:

1) What could appealing to Zipcar and Getaround members look like?
2) Could this be related to Sharetribe?
3) Your thoughts on this?

TF

Toad Ficca Fri 23 May 2014 2:28AM

I thought that those two were for shorter trips, but I could be wrong. Toad.

SG

Sally G Fri 23 May 2014 2:29AM

Are they for multiple days, or just a few hours at a time? I personally rent cars on rare occasions (being more disciplined about not heading down the street to grab a rental; I was going way over budget), but only remember one long-distance trip, to Washington, D.C., only a single day up and back, with 2 others. I’m concerned about expense, but otherwise it is a great idea—and maybe that is not such a problem, after all.

DH

Daniel Hong Fri 23 May 2014 2:52AM

@sallyg It looks like it'd be very expensive for Zipcar members: the first day alone, if traveling from Portland to Sacramento in 9 hours, would cost at least $65.70 plus $180.00 in extra milage (first 180 miles included; $0.45 per extra mile; about 580 miles from PDX to Sac; 400 extra miles charged) -- grand total, $245.70 minimum. And that's if we're assuming the member has the best subscription!

Getaround members have it better: cars can run as little as $25.00/day, and milage caps are more generous. Over winter break, I went to Truckee to stay at a friend's vacation home. We used Getaround to go to and back from PDX.

DH

Daniel Hong Fri 23 May 2014 2:53AM

@toadficca I believe both services can work for long-distance, also.

TF

Toad Ficca Fri 23 May 2014 3:32AM

Okay! We have Zip cars here at the University! I'll look into it, but I think it is really expensive too. Perhaps just renting an RV or van is the ticket...I might have a line on an RV! T.

SG

Sally G Fri 23 May 2014 3:36AM

My local agency rents vans (12- and 15-passenger, I believe) as well as cars; again, not sure about the long-distance costs, but for local they seemed reasonable.

SG

Sally G Wed 16 Jul 2014 7:56PM

The emergency call from Julia sparked some donations: can we analyze that with thoughts of I-80 (anyone know anything?) and Antiracism Training in mind? Was it our internal folks helping to make it happen, which is good, or did we tap into something outside ourselves, which is better? I may have a proposal for tonight’s call—please don’t miss it; we are very close!