Zipcar

Transportation topics in KC
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DaveKCMO
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Re: Zipcar

Post by DaveKCMO »

earthling wrote:Ah, I just did a quick check.. had to zoom into downtown to see the locations.

Who to contact within City to kickstart interest for Westport/Plaza locations and get an RFP going?
that expansion is already on the books. just need good usage downtown. signing up for a membership is a great first start.
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Re: Zipcar

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I've trained myself to not need a car it seems wasteful to now sign up for a car membership :)
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Re: Zipcar

Post by earthling »

DaveKCMO wrote:
earthling wrote:Ah, I just did a quick check.. had to zoom into downtown to see the locations.

Who to contact within City to kickstart interest for Westport/Plaza locations and get an RFP going?
that expansion is already on the books. just need good usage downtown. signing up for a membership is a great first start.
I've created an account with my zipcode but didn't pay for a plan yet. Hopefully just the account creation shows as interest.
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Re: Zipcar

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being a private enterprise, they need your money as a true indicator of interest.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by earthling »

Another way to look at it is that signing up shows I'm a potential customer and if they want my biz they need to place a location near me. If I pay now they have no incentive (and I probably wouldn't use so wouldn't pay anyway). Seems natural Westport/Plaza area will be next nevertheless. And I would use it for airport runs, cheaper than Uber more timely than bus.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by flyingember »

Signing up like that tells them nothing. You could be signing up to use the service on a trip in another city, they might assume you travel for business frequently.

The only thing that tells them you want service near your home is to literally tell them you want it.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by earthling »

How do you know it's the 'only' way. But yeah, will send them an email too.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by DaveKCMO »

pickwick ("east 9") reports they've landed some zipcars.

zipcar is also working with KCATA on some additional locations.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by earthling »

^9th and McGee now shows a spot.

Any recent action expanding Zipcars to Westport/Plaza area?
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Re: Zipcar

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I doubt it. they're struggling to gain traction downtown (it's slowly improving though).
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Re: Zipcar

Post by earthling »

^I suspected, don't know of anyone downtown using it. Seems perfect for airport and suburban runs. Uber seems to have a stronghold in KC. Get with it downtowners so that it can expand. :) Use it or lose it.

Overall KC has been embracing the sharing economy pretty well.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by flyingember »

They didn't start big enough. You're not going to rely on it if you can't count on a car being there.
As of this post there's six cars downtown, one at UMKC and one at the airport. So at this point, citywide eight people can use the service.

In NYC they have 3000 cars, a car roughly per 3000 people
KC has a car roughly per 57,000 people. So our network is 20x smaller per capita.

If they had brought 30 or 40 cars to downtown KC I expect use would be a lot higher because most people wouldn't need to hop on a bus to rent a car with them since they could have been spread out more.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by earthling »

NYC of course has a huge % with no car, including avg to even upper income. In KC a huge % still own a car even in city, including many below avg income. Uber is useful on the spot even for those who own a car, Zipcar is pretty much for those who don't have car at all and Zip's target audience is not lower income who would ride bus and not consider Zipcar.

Would suspect those in the middle are so ingrained into Uber they'd stick with it rather than use Zipcar. But there are cases where Zipcar is cheaper and more effective use than Uber, such as suburban and airport runs. Frankly it would be only time I'd use it.

But good to see Zipcar sees enough biz to add the 9th/McGee spot. STL has zero downtown, just airport, which is odd.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by brewcrew1000 »

Zipcar would be the perfect company to implement self driving cars for one way trips. A person takes zipcar from Downtown to Airport then the zipcar self drives back to its original spot, it would be the ideal first business to use self driving cars because there would be no human risk in any of it and it would make the company more efficient
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Re: Zipcar

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^Uber is attempting this but a self-driving crash seemed to slow it down. Still ahead of its time I guess. Until AI is mastered enough, might be a while.

Uber/Lyft could kill Zip by doing a subscription hybrid. Uber has been testing a monthly subscription in some cities with reduced fares per ride. That could effectively make Zipcar unnecessary depending on how final numbers work out for long hauls, and the car comes to you.

http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-is- ... ice-2016-8
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Re: Zipcar

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brewcrew1000 wrote:Zipcar would be the perfect company to implement self driving cars for one way trips. A person takes zipcar from Downtown to Airport then the zipcar self drives back to its original spot, it would be the ideal first business to use self driving cars because there would be no human risk in any of it and it would make the company more efficient
zipcar+avis+uber: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/ ... -Them.html
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Re: Zipcar

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https://twitter.com/BethB3/status/908711854628884481
Utilization of @Zipcar up 4 percent from July to Aug. 3k increase in miles driven, up 215 hours and 31 more reservations. #carshareinkc
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Re: Zipcar

Post by earthling »

Hopefully enough increase to justify expansion into Westport/Plaza area.
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Re: Zipcar

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Public Works reported that Zipcar usage was up YOY in November and December 2017.
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Re: Zipcar

Post by DaveKCMO »

Zipcar was down to two cars before COVID-19. I would not expect them to survive in most markets (especially KC).

Enterprise closed down their car share at UMKC (as they did nationwide).
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