Making Car Sharing and Car Clubs Work - Case ... - The Civil Service

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MAKING CAR SHARING AND CAR CLUBS WORKCASE STUDY SUMMARIESfree parking options. After the move, staff would have to pay £2.50 per day to park. The OldPost Office already had a basement car park but there were insufficient spaces for all thetenants of the 49 SHA flats there as well as the staff of the three new office suites and cafébars. Alternative free, but temporary, parking spaces were available on some Associationownedland earmarked for development some 10 minutes walk from the office.22.6 Since the launch of City Wheels, the staff Essential Car User Allowance has been phasedout (although kept for some long-serving staff), and staff were encouraged to use the newpool cars, through a combination of measures. These included a tightening-up of mileagechecks on staff's own vehicles used on SHA business; increasing the paperwork involved inprivate car use on SHA business; and, finally, not allowing staff parking of their own cars onthe premises. The staff free car park was moved a few blocks away: in contrast, the use ofthe pool cars was free and easy to operate.22.7 City Wheels has five cars: one Suzuki Wagon R, one Berlingo van (useful when carriage ofgoods is needed), two Daewoo Matiz, and one Smart Car. Each vehicle does about 7,000miles per year, although the Smart Car does a little over twice this amount. Damage to carshas not been a problem.Operating Structure22.8 SHA chose an operating structure and systems designed to be as simple and as trouble-freeas possible. A car diary booking system was set up in Microsoft Outlook® and City Wheelsmembers (and staff members using them as pool cars) can book by phone, fax or E-mail: inaddition, staff members can book over SHA’s intranet. Bookings can be made up to 4weeks in advance although City Wheels members tend to book one or two days ahead: caravailability has not usually been a problem. The scheme is run by one admin assistant whoalso manages the SHA fleet (caretakers’ vans and maintenance vehicles). The BackTraksystem, supplied by Overlevel Ltd is used to record and monitor mileage, fuel-consumptionetc. This was chosen following an internet search because it offered an almost paper-freeoperating system, added security in the form of additional immobilisers and because SHAfelt at the time that GPS was too expensive for the size of the car club.22.9 Cars are parked, and keys stored in a key cabinet, in a basement garage beneath the OldPost Office site. The concierge at this development carries out basic checks: tyres, water, oiletc while the office contract cleaners vacuum the interiors and wipe surfaces once a week.Each City Wheels member has a key to the key cabinet plus a BackTrak key and a key fobto operate the garage roller-shutter doors. Individual staff members simply have to booktheir car, and pick up a master set of Backtrak keys from reception for the car key safe in thebasement. BackTrak readings are taken once a month, downloaded into Microsoft Excel®.Payment for use of City Wheels is direct debited monthly.22.10 Staff generally have their own cars, and are still able to receive the standard Inland Revenuemileage allowance (40p per mile) if they use them on SHA business. However, they arediscouraged from using the pool cars for out-of-office training courses (unless SHA wants toadvertise City Wheels) because it takes cars out of available use.Final V1.1, Dec. 2004 - 130 -
MAKING CAR SHARING AND CAR CLUBS WORKCASE STUDY SUMMARIES22.11 City Wheels members are treated as staff (pool) car users for insurance terms. There areconditions attached to the insurance: e.g. the member must have a clean driving licence,people under 21 have to be applied for separately, and there must be no claims made oninsurance. However, obtaining insurance at a reasonable price was a major problem, andtook about a year to resolve. SHA’s existing insurance brokers claimed that a car clubavailable to tenants could only be done under Hire & Reward, making it prohibitivelyexpensive. New insurance brokers (Andrew James Knox) were obtained, and brought theprice down on the basis that City Wheels is a not-for-profit club, with members' paymentscontributing to the costs: through them AXA are contracted to insure the City Wheels fleet.Impact and Effectiveness22.12 Initial take-up was slow: the first tenants had already moved in and had arranged theirgeneral travel plans. Only two tenants subsequently relinquished their car (and the need topay £9 per week for an undercover secure parking space) in favour of the car club.However, membership has grown steadily: it now has 10 tenant members, although this isout of a total of about 500 tenants living within one mile of the City Centre. A year ago therewere eight tenant members, with four tenant members two years ago. Two of the currentmembers live at Wind Street (where the cars are based), whilst 8 live elsewhere in CityLiving developments in the City Centre. Only one tenant member uses a City Wheels car forwork, the remainder are all social users: one being a heavy social user, nearly everyweekend and a couple of days/nights per week.22.13 Around 30 staff use pool cars, with 20 using them regularly (more than once a week), whilsta further ten are casual users. However, out of this 30 staff user total (15 staff users twoyears ago), only four use cars out of work as members of the car club. The split of thetenant membership is around 60:40 Female to Male, with all between 25 and 54 in age.There are two couples where one of the partners is a car club member, while the othermembers are single people22.14 For some existing users of City Wheels car usage has gone up with their membership: thecar is there so they have moved from public transport to car use, making trips which werenot possible previously.Successes / Failures22.15 Key drivers for the success of City Wheels were the reputation of SHA for developinginnovative solutions, a clear marketing strategy which is consistent with this, and the partplayed by the Chief Executive in carrying forward this reputation and in jointly driving theproject. Strong management support was also evidenced by the fact that the Chief Executiveand two of the three directors agreed to give up their company cars as did a further threesenior managers. The year-on-year savings of providing the company cars were planned tooffset the cost of the pool cars. Initially there was a significant amount of internal resistanceto the scheme within the association, although this barrier was overcome, and so cannot beconsidered a failure.22.16 No targets have been set. The scheme’s success is being judged largely on itseffectiveness in reducing the costs of staff’s private car use, and its success in marketingFinal V1.1, Dec. 2004 - 131 -
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Making Car Sharing and Car Clubs Work - Case ... - The Civil Service

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