the culture of carsharing – strasburg may 2011

8/6/2019 The Culture of Carsharing – Strasburg May 2011

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The Culture of Carsharing. Strasbourg, 12-13 mai 2011

1 Speaking notes: Eric Britton. [email protected] 16 May 2011

1ères Rencontres nationales de l 'autopartage. Strasbourg, 12-13 mai 2011

The following notes were prepared in a firs t instance and on the fly to guide my presentation as the

"closing summary" I was invited to make at the closure of the Strasburg conference. I took it as my task

to sum up a certain number of observations that the formal presentations and the lively exchanges

over the day brought to mind. And then to round them out here with some other findings and

recommendations that I hope will be useful to the carshare community in France. The presentation

itself was in French, but if you turn to Youtube.com you will see an informal presentation in English.

- Eric Britton, World Streets, Paris. 16 May 2011

Speaking notes for closing commentary:

1. Introduction: The Culture of Carsharing

a. 2011 – 125th

anniversary of the birth of the motor car

b. The path to sustainable mobility runs like this: Roads –> Vehicles –> People –> Culture

c. Note: Carsharing = "only" a 1% solution (but what a percent – indispensable, synergistic)

d. Strasburg – Pioneer for the New Mobility Agenda and Mobilité Durable

e. What is a cyclist" – The Copenhagen conundrum

2. 2011-2020: What do the next ten years have in store for us? (What we know for sure.)

a. World population reaches 7 billion (with specter of 10 billion by end of century)

b. So, we had better get a lot better at sharing (Unless we chose to live in a gated world)

c. Our collective aspirations and demand for quality mobility will not go down.

d. Aging, more fragile, less affluent, less able to drive population

e. Oil will be steadily more expensive and steadily harder to come by. (France will not joinOPEC)

f. We will not be saved by technology – and in particular such technologies as electric cars,

new fuels, hybrids, etc. will have no more than marginal impact

g. We will be quite broke in the next several years and thus will have to learn to get lots of

high quality mobility per Euro spent.

h. We will have learn to work with what we have

i. There will be centers of excellence, which will be well worth understanding in depth

j. The New Mobility Agenda for a city will consist of an integrated bouquet of services

differing considerably from city to city, but in virtually all cases there will be a role for

carsharing

mailto:[email protected]








3. Reminder: " We have no money gentlemen, so we shall have to think." ( Statement made by the

Nobel Prize winner Professor Ernest Rutherford, on taking over the quite broke Cavendish

Laboratory in 1919, in the wake of the First World War)

4. Carsharing in France: 2000-2010

a. Opening, innovation, experimentation, diversity, fractionalization, reflection, adaptation,

Communication

b. Gradual and now accelerating crescendo

c. Great idea: Label Autopartage Paris

d. Reality: Successes, half-successes, failures

e. Learning curve and sharing

f. Annual (almost) conferences (going back to first at OECD in 1999)

g. Recognition – "Proposition de la Loi sur Autopartage"

5. Carsharing in France: 2011 – 2020

a. My guess it will expand by at. least 10- times

b. We will see a great variety of types of organization

c. I do not anticipate a dominant supplier (I.e., the nation under the heal of Zipcar or any

other.

d. The Paris Autolib pr will be a huge learning opportunity,.

e. Huge expansion of P2P carsharing

f. Continuous growth of "classic carsharing" (in all its variants)

g. Class carshare and P2P will come together in many places.

h. Carsharing will become the 1% solution

i. The neighborhood car (What does it mean?)

j. A key to the future will be the ability of all concerned to better share information and

knowledge as to what is going on at the leading edge in France . . . and beyond.

6. Improving Knowledge sharing in France (and beyond)

a. For carsharing -- but also all the other kindred forms of new mobility

b. A quick tour of Wikipedia of key terms in key languages provides an interesting view on this

collaborative learning environment that will be so important to support the better diffusionof the best ideas.

c. A French language "Wiki "on new mobility would be worth thinking about

d. Might be started by Club des Villes, GART and other players

e. Might benefit from an informal but not inefficient editorial panel

f. Certainly a role for integrating various tailored types of social network.

g. Might find itself usefully supported by something along the lines of the dedicated Italian

collaborative blog – Nuova Mobilità at http://nuovamobilita.org

h. Thank about sharing more broadly and interacting with other language groups and projects

i. Links to university and research programs, as well as projects




http://nuovamobilita.org/









7. Slow Down:

a. The creation in steps of a "Code de la rue" is one of the most exciting, important, low cost

and effective building blocks of sustainable mobility.

b. The current referendum in Strasburg to get massive public approval for the creation of a 30kph policy on a substantial portion of all city streets.

c. For some encouragement on this, have a look at

http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/honey-you-gotta-slow-down/

d. May this excellent example be followed in cities across France and beyond

8. The benefit to society of one less car in the city

a. Carsharing reduces the number of cars that people need in that place, and at the same

time significantly reduces the requirement for parking space.

b. It is not so hard to come p with a credible figure for the value to the community of one

parking space saved. We need to know this number to make wise policy decisions.

c. Fewer cars, less traffic, sets off a positive spiral of benefits (which are so numerous and

generally well known that I do not have to list here).

d. But we do not know thus far what is the value to society of these reductions.

e. This could be a major research task, with the objective of coming up with a rough but

specific estimate, which ideally will be of a sort that can be find tuned for time and place.

f. I propose that this important task not be treated a one more PhD topic but that it be given

high priority so that even very rough numbers can be generated with reasonable

confidence without delay.

g. This is, in my view, a very big number indeed – and until I see better I estimate the benefit

of taking a car out of the traffic stream at € 1.00 per km. not travelled.

h. If you play with this indicator – or hopefully a better one -- you will see that it generates

very large scale benefit estimates. Once we know these, the public sector will understand

better why it is worth investing money in all solutions that can help cut back traffic (but

without reducing mobility or quality of life for all in the city)

9. iMobility – Bring the CIA in France

a. The key technology to the future of high quality transport is IT, used both for informationand access purposes.

b. Thus I would like to call for a national program to create a Comprehensive Information

Access system (CIA), the goal of which is to put the city mobility system in all its parts into

the "pocket" of all citizens. The goal can be to get all the necessary information and

logistics into mobile phones, internet, and public terminals.












10. Some last words on advancing the carsharing agenda in France

a. The main pieces of the puzzle are now pretty much in place. Now there is only the matter

of execution.

b. The key lies in knowing and understanding the respective roles of he three key partners:

System operators, customers, the city.

c. The first two are by now pretty much under control, but I note that the role of the city in

most places is simply not active enough. I believe that this is because the decision makers,

media and the general public do not fully appreciate the value of the contribution of a first

rate carshare program

d. Key to the city's strong role

1. Take the time to inform themselves and all concerned about the real benefits of a

good carsharing operation

2. Consult the leading sources of experience and expertise in France to benefit from

their hard-earned competence.

3. Step back from the possibility of running such a system. Carsharing is not a

competence of city government

4.

Recognize and bring in, at least in the planning stage, all key partners5. Do not try to decide about technology. This is not a demonstrated area of

competence of the public sector. Instead set performance and environmental

standards and let the best technologies win the day.

6. Create an operations framework to maximize inputs: Example Paris's excellent

Label Autopartage

7. Parking – Provision, economics, motives, enforcement (If you don't get this right,

your program will lag. There is no good reason for this. We know or at least can

figure out in every case the value to the city of one parking place saved by

carsharing.

8. Zoning

9. City, other government employees – promotion and facilitation

10. Leading by example

a. The mayor and all city officials, contractors, etc. will be registered and

active carshare users.

b. There will be carshare operation in front of or close by all city facilities

c. All city fleets will be reorganized and run on a carsharing basis.

Thanks for your attention. This ran a bit longer than I had hoped, but this has been a very full two

days and I wanted to be sure that I shared with you all what I have observed and learned from you.

Eric BrittonWorld Streets, Paris

Some references:

For more on the Rencontres Nationales - http://www.rencontres-autopartage.fr/

World Carshare Forum - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WorldCarShare/

World Carshare Consortium – www.worldcarshare.com

World Carshare on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_170174886330276

World Streets on carsharing - http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/category/sharing/carshare/




http://www.rencontres-autopartage.fr/



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WorldCarShare/



http://www.worldcarshare.com/



http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_170174886330276



http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/category/sharing/carshare/













Two Carshare Maps:

World: This first map shows the locations of the hits coming to the World Carshare Consortium site today

at www.worldcarshare.com (Note there is very limited French consultation of this map)

France: Map showing French carshare operations in 2011:









the culture of carsharing – strasburg may 2011

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