The TDM Professional

Business Mags Note Carsharing Is Growing Up

Two recent business magazine articles about Zipcar indicate that what started as a little green carshare company has become the industry's dominant national company.

The Fast Company article (Zipcar Makes the Leap, by Alex Frankel, February 14, 2008) shares that Zipcar has 180,000 members in 50 cities with revenues of $50 million a year. Next step an IPO, 2 million customers and $1 billion in revenue. Fast Company tells us that part of Zipcar's success has been soft-selling the green benefits in favor of the total experience. Another ingredient of success has been the college market. With Zipcar now on 70 campuses nation-wide, when students graduate and migrate to urban areas they are already predisposed to the concept. Fast Company also says that traditional car-rental companies have taken note of Zipcar's success and have started hourly rental in some select cities. Is Zipcar worried? Nah. Zipcar's CEO says that by positioning themselves as the Whole Foods of carsharing, the rental-car companies end up being grocery stores that add an aisle or two of natural foods. In the end, he believes Zipcar has too big a head start in technology and customer service to be concerned.

The Inc. Magazine article (How Fast Can This Thing Go, Anyway? by Stephanie Clifford, March 2008) is the cover story and quite extensive. The article's subtitle says "Zipcar was a classic founder-run company--long on passion, short on cash. Until a new CEO came aboard, gave the business a seven-step tune up, and put the pedal to the metal." The author thus traces the rise of the company with the story of how Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith, who was brought in at the beginning of 2003 -four years after the company was founded and had begun experiencing growing pains - implemented a seven-point strategy for turning a great idea into a thriving company. And so far it has worked. His seven points:

1. Break It Down to Built It Up
2. Before you Get big, Get Tech
3. Brand With Attitude. And BMWs
4. Hand Over Power, Watch Ideas Fly
5. Sell Where Your Competition Won't
6. First, Prove It. Then, Fund It.
7. Know When to Say No. And Whey to Say Yes

The future for Zipcar looks bright. We  just met with Ellice Perez, General Manager of the Washington, D.C. regional office and came away impressed with the way they've handled the merger (Is Carshare Merger a Sign of Progress, November 1, 2007) of the two companies in our area and with their plans for the future. Ms. Perez has built a solid local team. Now with information from Inc. Magazine we know that she's got the backing and support from a great corporate culture. So the future of carsharing in our area looks very bright too.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and The TDM Professional blog and is a biking/Metrorail commuter from Alexandria, Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.

Is Philly the Carshare Capital of the Country?

35,000 Philly Carshare members may make it so. The December issue of Philadelphia magazine features a wonderfully fun and informative in-depth article (Good To Go, by Jason Fagone, December 2007; Philadelphia Magazine) on the history of what is now, according to their web site, the "world's largest regional carsharing organization."

On October 5th Philly Carshare signed up member # 30,000. In October they signed up a record 4,000 new members and they are now over 35,000. And 10,000 of these members have given up their cars. Now that's success! How'd they do it?

Author Jason Fagone takes readers on an odyssey that begins in 2002 with five co-founders, $25,000 in start-up funds and a dream. In the beginning the pitch was heavy on the environment and civic benefits. But the pitch shifted to bottom line wallet concerns and everyone saw the light. The City, the Parking Authority and SEPTA (the City's transit agency) all got on board. The city even got rid of 330 cars and started saving $7 million a year as a result. Philly Carshare management now believes they could someday get to a million members. That's the number of people in the region who don't commute by car, minus the number of people who live in neighborhoods too sprawled-out to support carshare. To get there, Philly Carshare is on a mission to rapidly expand and put cars in every neighborhood.

They want to make it mainstream. Says the founders, "It's cheap. It's there. It works. Simple." What Philly Carshare aspires to is a low-key ubiquity. Let's wish our friends in Philly continued success and let's hope that the newly combined Zipcar/Flexcar merger in our area can meet with similar success. We'll all be winners if it does.

Picture at top: Philly Carshare founders Tanya Seaman and Clayton Lane with the Key to the City of Philadelphia.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and The TDM Professional blog and a biking/Metrorail commuter from Alexandria, Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.

Is Carshare Merger a Sign of Progress?

I suppose one can look at the merger of Flexcar and Zipcar into one company as a sign of progress and the success of carsharing. But I sure liked the fact that in the D.C. area we had two companies to choose from. We were spoiled. But the times, they are a changin.

We learned of the merger in Wednesday morning's Washington Post (Zipcar and Flexcar Driven Together, October 31, 2007; Thomas Heath) and subsequent emails and press releases from Flex and Zip distributed to their customers the same day.

The companies, who will merge under the name Zipcar with their corporate headquarters residing in Zipcar's home of Boston (Flexcar was born and based in Seattle), said "The merger will be a classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of it's parts." According to the press release, members in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. - the only two cities where the companies have gone head to head - will have the advantage of "access to a larger fleet of cars." Let's hope it's true. If the companies here won't be getting rid of cars, that could indeed be good news. We'll likely have to wait and see how things fall out.

One thing is for sure. Carsharing is alive and well in our region, especially in Arlington and parts of Washington, D.C. where the local governments are giving it support. Arlington Carshare is up to 101 Flex and Zip cars stationed at our bright orange carsharing poles. Our March 2006 Carshare Study told us that 5% of Arlington residents in our Metrorail corridors were carshare members and that carsharing had allowed them to reduce their vehicle ownership rates and miles of travel while increasing transit use and walking. The net effect being a decrease in the need for parking in these areas and an increase in the quality of life. The Council of Governments is about to conduct a regional carsharing study as a follow-up to the 2006 Arlington report and should be reporting back on the results in a few months. I'm sure it will show even more progress.

Let's wish the folks at the newly combined Zipcar much luck and success with their merger. They've certainly added a lot to our transportation mix and our community.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and The TDM Professional blog and a biking/Metrorail commuter from Alexandria, Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.