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For a list of transit-oriented carsharing organizations across the USA, Canada, Australia & Brasil, check out the CarSharing Association at CarSharing.org

Great video. I am really noticing more and more zip cars down here in Washington. Its a very good alternative to owning a car and you really do not drive as much as you plan less trips to do more on each trip. Keep up the excellent info to us. Sharing is terrific too.

I really like this series and I also like car sharing. However, this video sounds like an free advertisement for zipcar, making it sound as if zipcar has invented car sharing and is the only one offering it. As others have pointed out, Zipcar is a for-profit company and thus has an interest not reducing their members' driving too much. There are lots of other, more community-based car sharing organizations out there. Not mentioning them seems rather odd.

Disclosure: I'm a happy Ithaca Carshare member.

Car sharing is great!  Too bad zipcar is only in big cities and moderate income neighborhoods.   

I think carsharing is a great development on many levels, but I want to express some skepticism about blanket claims that it reduces traffic.

In most parts of the country, there should be little doubt that it would reduce total auto travel. There are, however, reasons to suspect it could actually result in particularly dense places like NYC where current car ownership rates are low.

By making cars more accessible to a population of drivers with limited access, you could expect an increase in driving trips.

There are complications, of course. By improving parking availability and managing it better, there should be less cruising for open on-street parking spaces, which would have some reducing effect on traffic. And some people who have cars may give them up, making them likely to make fewer trips by car.

How these various factors would balance out is far from clear. The benefits from the reduced storage requirements alone make it look like a good idea, even in these situations. But it is worth considering that the results may not necessarily be a net reduction in VMT.

With "true" car-sharing, I presume an individual owns the car and the other users help pay for the upkeep, insurance, registration, etc. Is is possible for two or three unrelated people (or families) to own a car as "tenants in common"? The advantage of Zipcar (it would appear) is that the cars are owned by a company, so that if one car gets wrecked or has a catastrophic engine failure, the company supplies another one without all the hassle of buying another car or waiting for extensive repairs.
In either case, it means that one does not have a car in the driveway, ready at a moment's notice, and it imposes a certain amount of "discipline" upon one's local travels.

I love the idea of Zipcar, but I've only used it once in the 4 years, maybe longer, that I've been a member. That was an expensive, stressful day trip, trying to get the car back on time.

I'm wondering what types of trips people find it useful for. If I need a car to go out of town, I rent. If I need one to go somewhere in the city, which is rare, I call a car service or hail one on the street. No parking hassles or drinking and driving issues.

I first signed up for the service after I had to take the LIRR and then a cab to a Sunday night wake for which I could only stay for 50 minutes due to the train schedule. But I haven't had another situation like that since.

Its just self service car rental with the cars based in enough locations to be close enough to many points of ORIGIN.  But unlike bike share, you have to return your Zipcar to the point of origin.  Zipcar is good for specific purposes, but anyone serious about giving up a car can easily do it and use existing car and van sharing services; they are called TAXIS and MAN WITH VAN.  Walk/bike/bus - cabs for when you are sick or have a ton of stuff.  Everything else is wasteful overconsumption with or without greenwash. If your city needs rail it is probably unsustainable large. For more go to newworldeconomics.com

You want to hear someone who doesn't get it? http://www.npr.org/2011/03/03/134222010/William-Clay-Ford-Jr

1 person per car on 'free' roads just doesn't scale to 6 billion+ people for most of their journeys. Not if you also expect the fuel source to be cheap, and have a viable planet.

CarSharing is one business model among many that has to step into the breach, and maybe make some good money at it too!

you don't need to use a fancy for profit service to share the use of a car. When I still had a car and was driving between LA and SF a lot, I always advertised on Craigslist for people to share the ride. With a few common sense things to avoid getting stabbed, I found that not only did it save me money, it also made the drive a little nicer.

Likewise, there's the informal carpooling/sharing that happens at many locations in the Bay Area where people, often strangers will fill a car up with folks all going in the same general area (downtown SF, etc) and that helps too.

Zipcar et all are nice, but they're not the only way to share the use/expense of a car when you can't take a bus or a train.

Car sharing allows users to evaluate the full cost of each car trip, which encourages them to decide what the most appropriate mode choice is for a specific trip. I love car sharing!!

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