KEY POINTS:
Every time I go overseas, I marvel at the public transport systems of some countries. New York City's subway network carries five million passengers each working day and the London Underground can get to just about anywhere in England's sprawling capital.
In most major, Western cities a trip into town or to work is a subway, train or light rail ride away, a far cry from our patchy public transport which has sustained our love of cars for far too long.
The extensive nature of some of these public transport systems has given rise to carless families. They generally live in inner-city suburbs or on the outskirts of town, near metro or bus stops and don't want the burden of having to run and maintain a car and pay for parking. There are obvious disadvantages to not having a car at hand, but a few innovative companies have introduced services to help carless families get around and in Boston last week I had personal experience of one of them - Zipcar.
Welcome to the concept of personal transit-sharing. Zipcar is effectively a car rental company that rents out its vehicles by the hour and leaves them in convenient car parking spots around the city so you'll never have to go far to pick one up.
The car you'll get is no different to one you'd pick up from Avis or Budget - we drove to New Hampshire in a nippy little Mazda which costs US$68 a day or US$9 an hour to rent - gas, parking and insurance included. You get an allowance of 180 miles a day and are charged around US35c per mile if you exceed that.
What's impressive about Zipcar is the technology involved. When you hire the car, you'll find something strange - the key is already in it. Joining the car-sharing club gets you a Zipcard which grants you access to the car when you hold it up to a receiver stuck to the windscreen. Without the Zipcard, the car won't start. Zipcard unlocks the doors and ignition and lets you use the key.
As you drive around you can re-fill the gas tank but you won't have to pay. You swipe your Zipcard at the gas station's Eftpos terminal and enter the odometer reading. Zipcar builds the cost of fuelling the car into the daily or hourly rate .
That little receiver on the windscreen also allows Zipcar to see where all of its vehicles are, something that comes in very handy when you log onto the company's website to check out if there's a car available in your area. The position of available cars is plotted on Google Maps so you know exactly where they are. You can then hire one through the website and pay online.
There's no turning up to the car hire office to get a key, no form-filling necessary. Zipcar members just pay and drive away.
Zipcar's stronghold is the East Coast of the US and a sprinkling of other cities, including San Francisco, Montreal and even London. But the company has just merged with its major rival Flexcar, giving the combined new company, still named Zipcar, 200,000 members.
As regulation designed to make the automobile industry greener forces up the cost of owning and running cars, car-sharing is a concept that's likely to gain further traction. But would Zipcar work in New Zealand? I have my doubts.
