Serious . CarSbaring: Interviews with Carsten Petersen (at right) & Markus Petersen, founders of Europe's largest carsharing firm, STATTAUTO Berlin. By Danielle Janes & Greg Bryant (representing both the Eugene Car Co-op & RAIN) Thousands ofcarsharing members in Europe have opted out of the hassle and expense ofprivate car ownership. Instead, they pay only for the time they actually drive. They use neighborhood-based carsharing vehicles when they need to drive. Ten to twenty members share each car. They end up driving less, thereby helping the environment. Parking demand is also reduced. In the last issue of RAIN (Vol.14, No.4) we gave you a taste of what carsharing is all about. Inspired to create a carsharing operation ourselves, we found we had some more questions. Hopefully, others will find the results of the following interviews useful. Danielle J: Does carsharing work in all situations? Carsten P: STATTAUTO has tried doing carsharing in the outer are·as of Berlin. In Spandau. Twice. Some people there want it, but we weren't able to get enough... you need at least 30 people to open a station [of 2 cars and a cheekout system]. Why? Where public transit is not good, people have difficulty getting to work in a reasonable time. In this case, you just can't do carsharing. Maybe then you should switch over to the political level to establish a good public transport system. DJ: At what point did you add bus passes? CP: In 1991, when we got the new safe system. In the beginning, we only had a normal safe system that could be used with a key. After that we had about 500 people and figured it would become too anonymous. So we developed the safe system with the [magnetic] access card... here, I'll show you the mobile card. One side was our side and for paying taxi rides~ the other side was for bus pass stickers. "They are members because they want just the possibility of using the cars." DJ: Do you get the pass in the mail if you're a member? CP: No, not yet. Right now it's basically a symbol that connects the two. We could buy 2000 bus pass stickers to Page 44 RAIN Summer 1996 Volume XV, Number 1 give to our members, which would be economical for the bus company. But BVG is really an elephant, so maybe next year. DJ: So not all the members have the bus pass sticker? CP:.I don't know. In the summer, some people don't get a pass. Anyway, then we step by step added the taxi and trains to the Mobile card. DJ: Does that mean members get billed monthly for their taxi use? What can you do with the Mobile card? CP: You can use STATTAUTO, get a BVG bus pass, ride in a taxi, get railway tickets by phone and charge it to your Mobile card. In autumn 1995, we will have another thing: a delivery system by which you can get food delivered from the grocery store. Many people did not want to join STATTAUTO because they wanted to drive to shop for food. Many parents can't carry all the food by bus or foot. But the delivery service will be only for organically grown (Biological) food, and only food that comes from the local region. This comes from special shops here called Brandenburg shops, created by an organization that helped local farmers after the falling of the wall. Also, we wanted to increase awareness that buying local food helps the environment. DJ: Tell me about the requirement that members not own cars. CP: In the beginning, we said that only members could join if they did not own a car. This was to avoid people having more cars than they had before joining. Everyone, especially the media, was very interested in that point. In the contract, people had to say that they didn't own a car. Everyone thought this was an important ecological and political point and w,e were very fond of the point because everyone applauded that point. But after a year we realized it was really an idiotic point, because if you own a car, why would you pay 1ODM per month to use another one? So you must not forbid it. .. it's an empty law. We gave up the point. I realized that everyope was so fond of this point, that moral
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