Posted by Geraldine Herbert on Sep 7, 2012
Car Rental With a Twist
Do you like the convenience of having a car but hate paying for fuel and coping with the ever increasing high cost of tax & insurance? An innovative system to allow access to cars by the hour may be just the solution! A significant number of urban dwellers have joined residents of other major cities in giving up their cars and turning to alternative forms of car use. A new car sharing system in Ireland, GoCar plans to persuade people to move from the idea of owning a car to that of simply using a car. Unlike car hire which is more suited to day/weekend companies like GoCar provide cars for as short as an hour. It is in essence the car equivalent of the Dublin bike scheme. A wholly Irish owned company GoCar currently use low carbon emission vehicles and will have electric vehicles on the fleet by the end of the year. The scheme is ideally suited to people living in apartments without parking spaces or families who are considering the purchase of a second car. For individuals it provides the flexibility of a car without the overheads while for families it could provide the means to take kids to after-school and recreation activities without the need for a second car. While for cities car sharing reduces parking issues, lessens congestion yet still providing access to vehicles for people who need them. Car share may be new to Ireland but innovative car sharing schemes have been springing up around the world for a number of years. In Paris the world-first electric car-share scheme, Bluecar has just been launched. The scheme is based on the capital’s popular bicycle-sharing system and with over 1200 charging stations throughout the city it is designed to become the world’s largest of its kind. The four-seater Bluecar was designed and manufactured in Italy by the designer Pininfarina and has a 240km range, and takes about 4 hours to recharge. In America a scheme called Zipcar claims to be the world’s leading car-sharing network with more than 700,000 members and 10,000 vehicles throughout the US, Canada and the UK. A variation on the car sharing scheme is one open to anyone who owns a car, or anyone looking for a lift. Liftshare.com website enables motorists to save money on petrol and parking and reduce their Co2 emissions...
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