Auckland Transport have announced they want a large region wide electric car sharing scheme in Auckland
Auckland Transport is looking for a car share operator to launch a large scale scheme in Auckland, based on Plug-in Electric Vehicles.
Auckland Transport has released a Request for Proposal (RFP) from car share operators to create a scheme here. It would initially have 250 – 300 vehicles which AT will match with a similar number of car parks dedicated to care share vehicles. It’s expected that, in time, the fleet would increase to at least 500 cars.
A new large-scale scheme in Auckland would be a private venture with all significant costs borne by the operator, not by Auckland ratepayers. Auckland Transport’s main contribution would be to designate dedicated car parks around the city.
Car share schemes are based on members who pay a membership fee which entitles them to use a scheme-owned car on demand, for which they pay a per-trip charge based upon the time used.
There are already about five million people, world-wide, who are members of a car share scheme and the numbers of both users and cities with a scheme, are growing rapidly, changing transport habits in the process.
Auckland Transport chairman Dr Lester Levy says evidence shows members reduce the number of cars they own, with some giving up ownership altogether. As a result, one shared-car can replace between eight and 20 privately-owned cars, depending on the scheme and the city.
Dr Levy says if a large scale scheme in Auckland achieved at the lower end of the scale, it could replace 2000 private cars and at the higher end, as many as 10,000.
He says besides reducing their car ownership, scheme members tend to travel fewer kilometres each year in a car and significantly re-orientate their transport habits onto a mix of car-share, public transport and walking and cycling.
Mayor Len Brown says, “A scheme like this can make an important contribution to both our transport network, our commitment to lowering carbon emissions, and our sustainability initiatives. Once again, it is about offering Aucklanders alternatives – a new transport option, an alternative energy source, and if people want, an alternative to private car ownership to complement public and active transport.”
In addition, car-sharing schemes had the potential to allow operators of large fleets to significantly reduce the number of vehicles they own.
Dr Levy says, “We estimate that Auckland Transport could reduce its fleet by between 25 and 50%, which would represent a significant saving to ratepayers. All of these changes would make a contribution towards Auckland reducing road congestion and encouraging people out of private cars into alternative forms of travel.”
When a scheme is based on electric vehicles, as favoured for Auckland, there would be an accompanying reduction in environmental pollution, an encouragement for more people to move to electric vehicles and the substitution of a clean, “home-grown” fuel for imported fossil fuels.
These benefits will tick a number of the boxes in Auckland’s Low Carbon Action Plan and assists our existing initiatives to also meet low carbon objectives, Dr Levy says.
Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) Chief Executive, Mike Underhill, applauds Auckland Transport for its leadership in this proposal which will help get Auckland moving, support the Low Carbon Auckland Action Plan and play an important part in supporting the uptake of electric vehicles nationwide.
“Auckland Transport’s proposal will offer Auckland businesses and residents an exciting alternative to using their own car in the city.”
Mr Underhill says electric vehicle car share programmes have been successfully running overseas for years. “It’s time for New Zealand to grab the opportunity to reduce our carbon emissions and make the most of our abundant renewable electricity.”
“Wearing his hat” as chairman of both the Auckland and Waitemata District Health Boards, Dr Levy says an average of 126 premature deaths each year in Auckland, of adults over 30, are attributed to transport emissions in the air.
“Anything that brings that figure down is worth doing – and this is but one of the health benefits that will come from cleaning up Auckland’s air,” he says.
Dr Levy notes Auckland already has a commercial car-share operator, City Hop. There is also a community based scheme, NZ Car Sharing on Waiheke Island. Auckland Transport has worked with both for a number of years, they are relatively small-scale operators and the RFP released today is for a large-scale scheme.
Dr Levy say both existing schemes are welcome to respond to the RFP but even if they don’t, Auckland Transport will continue to work with them.
I think this is a really positive step. As mentioned car sharing has the potential to really change behaviour, especially amongst those who also have good PT, walking or cycling options available.
This is how AT see car sharing fitting in with other transport modes.
One aspect of the announcement that has surprised me has been the reaction from Cityhop who already provide car sharing in Auckland. They have appeared to be very angry at the news. That might seem understandable however given they’ve been doing this for seven years. However given they already have an established customer base they are also probably best placed to take advantage of AT’s new found support.
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I think this is great. *And* also disppointing – since AT has made no progress on a BIKE-sharing project for the last couple years. It guess we’re still in Auckland.
Max I think this is actually the right way round. Paris did bikes [2007] before cars [2011] but they have much better cycling amenity and of course no mandatory helmet law. We have a very complete driving network in Auckland to support this, I fear a cycle version would fail for the reasons above if tried now. Assuming the higher end of the proposed investment in cycling infrastructure goes ahead then this proposal should be followed by a bike version in a few years. Although there would still be the stupid helmet law as a major hurdle to it working.
See here for these issues with the Melbourne example: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2015/01/27/is-it-time-to-wave-goodbye-to-melbourne-bike-share/
And here for just how safe these systems can be: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/05/30/nyc_citi_bike_zero_fatalities_in_new_york_city_bike_share_program_s_first.html
completely agree with Patrick here.
I often walk past one of those bike racks on Hobson Street (near Cook Street).
Usually all three bikes are there. It would take a brave soul to go out there on a bike. Does anyone have statistics on how often those bikes are actually used?
From a 2011 article in the Herald when AT let Cityhop use 10 spaces round town for free
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10771168
“In return for the free spaces, which will be like taxi ranks, Cityhop must provide Auckland Transport with regular reports on its members’ travel habits and usage rates for each car.”
Basically if I were Cityhop I would be angry too, They have been providing AT details on usage rate and customers travel habits (at what level we are not told), and then they find AT have sent out an RFP for a competing service, ( Cityhop must be concerned that their data has been the basis for this new proposal)
Interesting, but not sure I agree with the Cityhop POV here.
They entered into a commercial arrangement with Auckland city council where they as a company got some quite nice prominent placing for their service in publicly owned parking buildings, presumably at a significant discount from simply buying car parking spaces at a fully commercial rate.
They share data with AT, but any company looking to set up a (bigger) competing service would have to do due diligence and look at the potential market rather than the modest existing service stats. If Cityhop wanted commercial restrictions on the data, then no doubt they could have negotiated that, but AT would want to keep an eye on the usage of the service to ensure it was meeting the goals of reducing overall car related demand rather than just providing cheap 24/7 car storage for a handful of individuals/firms.
Companies like Cityhop, should have no expectation that there would be no competition; and infact it is surprising there have been no competitors for the many years that Cityhop has run.
AT have sent out an RFP for a new and bigger service; Cityhop would seem to be a good position to put in a proposal, as they already have systems and a customer base; all they need is some vehicle replacements (though though Cityhop already had the odd iMiev or just the petrol version?). If they can’t compete with newcomers, then they should not be occupying parking spots, though I saw the suggestion that AT would continue to support them.
One area I would like to see AT target is companies who still provide company cars in the Auckland CBD. I know that company car’s are often used by sales reps and the like who use the car all day, but when people have access to ‘free’ company cars, they get used heavily even if alternatives exist. Stats seem to back up my experience though ‘company cars’ covers a wide range of vehicles:.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/profile-and-summary-reports/commuting-patterns-auckland/commuting-modes.aspx
For many companies/organisations including the Auckland council bodies, they should be encouraged to interface with car-sharing schemes; i.e. have them as a bookable resource. For a consultant like me, if I ride to work in the morning but need to pop out for a client meeting, would be nice to schedule access to a car close by in Outlook, rather than expecting the company to have its own car pool, or muck about with taxi chits.
Would electric cars work for sharing? The first person drives for one hour then it charges for 8 and the next person gets to drive it for 1 hour and so on.
Yip – these could realistically be in use 12 hours a day (from 9am to 9pm).
I also question the need to start them off as EV’s. Using EV’s significantly increases the infrastructure cost. Why not start with small, fuel efficient vehicles (like CityHop has) to grow the membership base on a cost effective basis. These can be changed to EV with charge points as demand increases and technology improves. The infrastructure work can also be integrated into other updates rather than stand alone tearing up the pavement to install a chargepoint.
Sounds like a grandiose plan destine to cost to much to set up as opposed to building it up just ahead of demand.
That’s a good point – why make them electric? It seems they are confusing objectives. The objective of a car sharing scheme would be to reduce the necessity of car ownership in the city and hence save space. This is being confused with the objective of promoting electric vehicles in order to reduce emissions.
Whether the cars are electric or not makes no contribution to achieving the first objective or reducing car ownership. The emissions from a fledgling car share scheme must be negligible anyway so why burden the scheme with the requirements of being electric?
If promoting electric vehicles is a worthy objective surely that could be targeted better elsewhere.
No they’re doubling up on objectives. Going to the gas station is an inefficient detour and complication for a car share scheme. And of course EVs are self evidently better for the city, nation, and environment, especially in a nation that already generates the vast majority of its electrons renewably.
Having said that I understand the EV aspect is not a bottom line.
Yes, I too have some concerns over the EV objective.
I understand the advantages, but there are some serious downsides. Cost is one, as Patrick mentions, but my main concern is actually about the diversity of vehicle fleet: One of the primary advantages of mature car-share operations overseas is they provide access to a variety of vehicle
Not everyone will want to squeeze into a bite-sized EV …
Having just spent a lot of time and energy on a car sharing proposal, it’ll be much better to use hybrids for now and then switch to electrics as it becomes realistic. The key factor is a proper fast charger costs the same (around $35k) as another revenue-generating car. Until the range of electrics increases or the chargers are cheaper it’s more important to provide an easy to use service than get the electrics.
This is coming from a die hard EV fan, mind you, car share just has very specific requirements.
Tom – does that $35k cost to install a fast charger include all instal costs, especially when there is no close electrical system near by (parking buildings may be ok but street side parks would be an issue?)?
Funny trolling but you can’t drive them to Hamilton or Wellington, this is not a problem in Paris with is a much bigger city than Auckland, no need for 8 hour charges between use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolib‘
https://www.autolib.eu/en/how-does-it-work/service/
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jul/09/electric-boris-car-source-london-how-work-paris-autolib
I don’t know if you’re joking or not, but electric cars are not what they were 10 years ago.
With almost no knowledge of whats gone on, CityHops reaction seems reasonable. They’ve been doing their best, but AT announces increased support in teh area but doesn’t involve them? It seems to be more about Grandstanding, especially the addition that they be EV’s.
Well can’t they just tender for the expanded programme then?
“The cityhop cars are 5 door eco-friendly cars. The main cars in our fleet are either 5 door Daihatsu Sirions with 1.3 litre engines or the 5 door Suzuki Swifts with 1.2 litre engines.”
I can’t possibly think of a major capital limitation that a rental company operating a petrol-driven fleet might have in tendering for an electric car contract.
yes I also don’t understand their reaction. I’m a cityhop member since way back, and would have thought they’d be well-placed to team up with international providers to make a joint bid for this.
Also makes sense for AT to let a contract for this, as they’ll be involved in managing parking (including enforcement) and possibly also servicing for charging facilities.
It seems like yesterday, but in reality much longer ago, that I was saying AT (and AC) should be partnering with Cityhop to provide an alternative to their own fleets. They could have had them at Henderson, Takapuna, CBD and Manukau and would allow a quick expansion of Cityhop, reduce the obvious business risk etc. Add in HOP as a payment option. Then add in EV availability over a period of time. So easy. Oh well.
This scheme works and fails with a simple thing. Where you need to drop your car once you used it. That is also a problem of Citihop where you have to return it where you got it from. Surprisingly often people only need it only one-way. Car2go which friends of mine use extensively, works on a location finder basis so you use your mobile to find the closest available car to you. And based on that you can just drop it anywhere within a defined region.
agree – allowing for one way trips is essential. I think go get in Australia allows you to drop off in many locations? I.e. one-way trips.
Sadly not. With Go get, you still have to return the car to where you got it from. I can’t find any car share company in Melbourne that do one way hires
+1. Flexicar is useless unless I’m running an errand.
The car2go option seems much more user friendly.
Great idea AT.
NZ hydro electricity >>>>>>>> Imported War Oil
I know of Cityhop only through this blog, don’t see them in real life often..
It is a huge thing to ask for someone to invest over $8 mil into a carshare scheme – AT wants a minimum of 200 EV’s which cost about 40k each not including any gear that they may need! How is this feasible? Sounds plain risky to me! I can understand where cityhop is coming from.. I mean they didn’t even get invited to the tender! Not very supportive AT of NZ businesses especially since it will most likely be someone overseas that gets the tender.
They were invited to tender along with anyone else interested today – unless you mean only they should have been able to tender.
As far as I am aware cityhop never received a formal invitation.. only got wind of it through others which is disappointing
An invitation to the event or to tender. If the latter then that’s no different to any other company that might be interested. They were certainly at the announcement today though.
I think Cityhop is one of the best kept secrets in AKL transport – I use them regularly, and find their customer service outstanding. For work trips that I do as a consultant, they are extremely economical for trips between say 4-30km and 2-4 hours, allow me to move around areas/sites rather than just stay put in a meeting, and are way more flexible than borrowing one of the company’s cars. Once you’re registered the booking system works a treat (tip: use a smartphone, its way better interface than the main website), and it’s flexible. The number of times I have sat in a Council or developer meeting and pressed the “extend my booking” button under the table….
I’d be pretty pissed if I were Cityhop as well; anyone who can make a car/bike/scooter/whatever-share scheme work commercially in Auckland deserves some credit, and I can’t help thinking that there is a strong element of the Supercity overkill in this announcement. Just like the waste collection contracts, the new Council seems to like squashing all of the local initiatives and wants to contract with big international corporates. Great, lets shoot local economic investment policies and initiatives in the foot, and just ship more revenue offshore. Cityhop have just upgraded some of their cars in the last few weeks (Yaris, much better than the Swifts), so I think there is a double insult from Council there as well.
That said, the lack of one-way is the only drawback in the system, but then hey – thats what taxis and buses are for if that is critical to you. If Council wanted this as an option they could easily change the Cityhop arrangement to allow them to park in a wide range of places, but I bet there would be an amount of relocation cost involved that could quickly increase charges – rental companies have the same issue.
If it’s EV that the Council is after, they would be much better changing out their own fleet IMHO. Invite a tender for that, use it as a trial to deal to issues, then go public. Maybe they are just burnt after the AT shuttle malarkey, and maybe its just too blindingly obvious.
This is an excellent announcement and demonstrates great vision from AT and AC.
There is no doubt that CityHop has been left high and dry here. Yes, it is great for AT to be able to make a big announcement about an EV carsharing service, but at this point in the game EVs are more expensive, and their carbon benefits are small relative to a compact car, given the embodied energy costs involved in their manufacture.
CityHop is a private enterprise that has invested real money (and time and energy) into a project that is undoubtedly a positive contribution to Auckland’s transport infrastructure, and AT should have found a way to actively include them in this, rather than rolling over the top of them.
Imagine how we would feel if AT announced a plan to put 20,000 electric bikes on the roads and bike-paths of Auckland, but did it in a way that completely ignored all our existing bike-shops…
> Imagine how we would feel if AT announced a plan to put 20,000 electric bikes on the roads and bike-paths of Auckland, but did it in a way that completely ignored all our existing bike-shops…
Sounds good. What’s the matter with ignoring existing bike shops? Considering that most of the available supply of bikes here would be unsuitable for a 20,000-strong expansion, it would only make sense. Auckland is hardly spoiled with electric, or folding, or Dutch, or mamachari, or cargo bikes for that matter. New or transformed supply chains would be needed.
Aww diddums Cityhop, did the widdle competitive environment change on you? The last mob to try to scoop.co.nz their way into a sweetheart local transport contract was Snapper Auckland, that went well didn’t it
“AT wants electric car sharing” – so far so predictable – but what about Aucklanders? I beg to differ. This has ‘expensive fail’ written all over it. Naturally, when it croaks – the taxpayer will cough up to fill the hole. Kill this turkey dead now, before it starts to cost what Auckland City cannot afford to pay.