The latest city to roll out the Daimler car2o short term car rental scheme is Vienna, where more than 7,000 city dwellers have registered for the service, writes Brian Byrne.
With 500 Smart ForTwo vehicles available in the city since early December, the scheme has already registered more than 60,000 rentals. The current rate of new journeys is 10,000 a week.
The scheme is similar to the bike rental facilities available in many cities, including Dublin, and in Vienna's car2go four out of five journeys last less than 45 minutes. The average distance is between 5-10 kilometres.
The system involves a once-off registration fee of €9.90, and after that customers can spontaneously rent available cars on the street, or find and book them using smartphone apps or their computers. Accessing the cars is via the membership card.
The cars can be left for free in any public parking space or short term parking places inside the city operating area. The scheme pays a blanket parking fee to the city to cover this.
More than two thirds of users are between the ages of 26-50, and a fifth are under 25.
Charges are by the minutes driven (€0.29) and parked (€0.09) with discounted prices for hourly and daily use.
The car2go scheme was inaugurated by Daimler in 2008 and is already operating successfully in nine cities in Europe, the USA and in Canada. Nearly 3,000 vehicles are currently in operation for more than 70,000 customers.
