CAR2GO, THE ‘pay-by-the-minute’ car club launched in the UK in London approximately six months ago (LTT 7 Dec 12), has now started operations in Birmingham. 250 cars will be provided at first in a 12-month pilot scheme  (LTT 17 Aug 12), costing 35p per minute for registered users to drive. The car2go ‘zone’, within which cars can be picked up and dropped off, covers the Birmingham city area between Oxhill Road; Pershore Road, Vicarage Road; Highfield Road; City...

The European market for Carsharing services -traditionally referred to as car clubs in the UK - continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. Between 2008 and 2012 there was almost a 90% increase in participating members from 500,000 to over 940,000 in “Traditional” or “Peer to Peer (P2P)” Carsharing schemes.  According to Frost & Sullivan analysis, this trend is set to continue; 2020 could see over 15 million traditional Carsharing members (including both...

IIn the last issue we reported a significant transaction involving a car hire business moving across into urban mobility, with the acquisition of the ZipCar car share system by Avis. It’s not the only major strategic move being made by major players interested in a new role for cars in cities, and now the subject of New Transit’s new Car Share and Urban Mobility event in Brussels on 9th July. Another major deal has seen the big money US private equity firm Carlyle Group buying...

It’s 50 years since the publication in 1963 of two pivotal reports on British transport: The Reshaping of British Railways by Dr Richard Beeching, and Traffic in Towns by Colin (later Sir Colin) Buchanan. Both represented sea changes in the accepted transport wisdom of the time. What do they tell us today? Beeching’s report said that the then railway network was a financial basket case, with too many little used and loss-making secondary routes. It called for a focus on core routes...

ON 26 APRIL, The Birmingham Mail piggybacked on the LTT-supported Cycle City Expo in England’s second city to launch “a new campaign backing a bid for £17m investment that would transform cycling in our city”. “Birmingham is on the cusp of a cycling revolution,” the paper suggested. “The city is buzzing with the prospect of a bicycle boom… A 20-year plan has been devised to dramatically improve cycling, ambitiously setting its sights on the...

Simon Wilson has joined the board of APCOA Parking (UK) in the position of operations director. Wilson joins the company from Cushman & Wakefield LLP, where he directed the real estate firm’s European facilities management (FM) operations. Prior to that he worked in both strategic and operational roles for Johnson Controls, McKinsey & Company, Linklaters and Foster Wheeler Energy, after initially serving in the British Army. At APCOA Wilson will be responsible for optimising...

Mike Palmer has joined APCOA Parking (UK) as head of technical projects following a career in both project and customer relationship management.  After studying as a mechanical engineer, Palmer joined Mars Electronics in 1986, where he worked for nine years on coin and bank note recognition systems. He then took up an operational management role with Scipher − a management buy-out vehicle for Thorn EMI’s Central Research Laboratories and TSSI Systems. Palmer was then contracted...

AN indepeNdent standards body should oversee the journey sharing sector and lobby public bodies to give more priority to motorists who car share, according to a new report by sector representatives. The recommendation features in the interim report of the ride sharing working group set up by Carplus, which already provides an accreditation service for car club operators. The working group included Colin Black, chairman of travel behaviour change organisation ACT Travelwise; Chas Ball, chief...

Sir Colin Buchanan’s grandson, Paul Buchanan, this week paid tribute to his grandfather’s work in defining critical issues of transport planning and policy 50 years ago but raised a number of new challenges for the transport planning profession and policy-makers. Giving a lecture in London to members of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation, Paul said his grandfather’s  seminal 1963 report Traffic in Towns had correctly identified the fact that...

Amongst the surprises contained in the 2011 Census statistics on travel to work are some encouraging and some challenging findings for supporters of ‘smarter choices’ and sustainable transport more generally. First some good news: across the country as a whole, the share of commuting by car has fallen, slightly. London continues to show the rest of England how modal shift from driving to public transport can be achieved. Apologists for bus deregulation used to argue that...

The headline ‘Slower economy puts the brakes on road deaths’ is certainly eye-catching, and full of issues that may not be immediately apparent, but are challenging nevertheless. If poorly performing economies are safer than growing ones, does this mean that we are handling the process of growth in the wrong way? Or that growth should not be accorded the overwhelming priority that, at least in speeches, it usually is? Even more problematic, does it mean that the recent improvement...

Audi drivers can now access information from their cars about current train connections from anywhere in Germany, and soon anywhere in Europe, under a strategic partnership between the car maker and Hannover based software systems developer HaCon to integrate timetable data into its multimedia system. HaCon supplies timetable data from all over Europe for Audi and its MMI Navigation plus. Travellers in A3 models equipped with Audi connect can now get information about train stations and trains...

The news that Avis have bought Zipcar, and that car2go (run by Daimler, Mercedes’s parent company) have begun building up carshare operations around London, has further highlighted the potential of this sector to produce new solutions for urban mobility and potentially pose a challenge to traditional public transport. But will these new players in the urban transport mix - including other major car manufacturers like Peugeot and BMW and car hire firms like Hertz, Sixt and Enterprise -...

Across the transport sector there are certain individuals whose activities stand out either as beyond the significance of their own specific role within an organisation, or for introducing new ideas from an inventive technological or entrepreneurial standpoint. In an era of rapid change to the way transport services are managed, marketed and paid for it is not surprising that a group of such people feature amongst our power list. Elaine Rosscraig, Stagecoach’s head of bus customer...

The Olympic Games and a match-day car park used by fans of both Liverpool and Everton were among the winners at the British Parking Awards, which were announced in London on Friday 8 March. The competition, which is now in its 12th year, is organised by Parking Review and Landor LINKS to recognise and celebrate the best in parking management, design and innovation. The Olympic legacy was in evidence during the ceremony, as LOCOG Transport won the Partnership Award for its work to ensure that...

After the announcement of significant new funding to boost cycling in the UK (LTT 08 Feb), Metro asked the question: “Is cycling getting enough push?” “Some time ago, if a Spandex-clad cyclist in tight purple shorts had told you his sport was cool, you would have told him ‘On yer bike!’,” Ross McGuiness, the paper’s ‘In Focus’ columnist began. “Fast forward a few years and chances are you’ll be pulling up alongside him in the...

ON 18 FEBRUARY, which was the tenth anniversary of the introduction of congestion charging in London, The Daily Mirror asked the rhetorical question: “Are commuters getting greener?” “Since the charge for driving in central London was introduced bikes, buses, electric cars and car sharing have taken off,” the paper claimed. “Ken Livingstone’s big idea [was] to make the capital a cleaner, less congested place. But the way in which our capital’s commuters...

If you are near to an internet browser as you read this, type the search term ‘Peak Car’ into Google and have a look at the top two or three page listings. Now repeat the test with the search term ‘High Speed 2’. At the time of writing, the top listing for ‘Peak Car’ is a Wikipedia article on the subject. Similarly, the Wikipedia article on High Speed 2 is ranked second by Google, just below the official HS2 website, but above the Department for...