Carsharing - History

History

The first reference to carsharing in print identifies the Selbstfahrergenossenschaft carshare program in a housing cooperative that got underway in Zürich in 1948, but there was no known formal development of the concept in the next few years. By the 1960s as innovators, industrialists, cities, and public authorities studied the possibility of high-technology transportation—mainly computer-based small vehicle systems (almost all of them on separate guideways)—it was possible to spot some early precursors to present-day service ideas and control technologies.

The early 1970s saw the first whole-system carshare projects. The ProcoTip system in France lasted only about two years. A much more ambitious project called the Witkar was launched in Amsterdam by the founders of the 1968 white bicycles project. A sophisticated project based on small electric vehicles, electronic controls for reservations and return, and plans for a large number of stations covering the entire city, the project endured into the mid-1980s before finally being abandoned.

The 1980s and first half of the 1990s was a "coming of age" period for carsharing, with continued slow growth, mainly of smaller non-profit systems, many in Switzerland and Germany, but also on a smaller scale in Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States.

As of September 2012, Zipcar is the largest service in the world with 730,000 members and offering 11,000 vehicles in urban areas and over 250 college campuses throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain and Austria. By 2010 Zipcar accounted for 80% of the U.S car sharing market and half of all car-sharers worldwide.

Several car rental companies launched their own car sharing services beginning in 2008, including Hertz on Demand (formerly known as Connect by Hertz), operating in the U.S. and Europe; WeCar by Enterprise Rent-A-Car; U Car Share owned by U-Haul, and Avis On Location by Avis.

In 2010 a new approach to carsharing began to be implemented, based on a peer-to-peer model.

Many building developers are now incorporating share-cars into their developments as an added value to tenants. Municipal government bodies around the world are starting to stipulate the implementation of a car-sharing service in new buildings as a sustainability initiative. This has created a demand for a new model of car-sharing - residential, private-access share-cars that are typically underwritten by the Homeowner association.