Micro hire vehicles

Although I am basically a fan of micro hire vehicles, such as Zipcar (and the former Streetcar), I am rather disappointed by their pricing structure. I drive so rarely that I don't want to pay £59.50 for a year's Zipcar membership in case I never use it. I also note that they give you a free (at the point of use) mileage allowance, which expires after a certain time, and the daily hire fee includes up to 40 miles "free".

I was briefly a member of Streetcar, though I never used one of their cars. They were a commercial organisation (as is Zipcar) and they sent me plenty of e-mails to try to get me to drive one of their cars. There's a paradox here.

If anything, I need a true pay as you go microhire. I'm prepared to pay a small one off fee for joining - and this should stop (or reduce the amount of) people joining frivolously, but then I want to pay for only what I use - the Oystercard model. I accept that a modest one off fee per hiring will reduce hires for very short journeys. As things stand, whilst it will work out cheaper than car ownership, there's still the same incentive, albeit much smaller,  to use a car to get your money's worth.

I suppose in fairness the target market here is car owners, rather than non car owners, but I would quite like to have the insurance policy of having a nearby car for hire for short periods.

Car club expansion

New "car club only" parking spaces are appearing in Barking, including Salisbury Avenue (near Priory Road), Axe Street (near 'The Victoria') and St Erkenwalds Road. The spaces will be occupied by Streetcar microhire vehicles.

Cars and therefore car clubs are unlikely to be "deep green", but not owning a car is a stepping stone to a more sustainable lifestyle and car clubs and microhire can help with this. Even if your motivation is not environmental, you can free yourself from some of the hassle of car ownership by joining one of these schemes.

Cars available for common use also free up space,which is at a premium and reduce the amount of cars standing idle - better asset management.

http://www.streetcar.co.uk/

Micro car hire

These schemes use technology to make it possible to hire cars for short periods of time. I'm aware of three schemes (yet again the disadvantages of competition kick in) of which streetcar seems to have the most vehicles, including some convenient for Barking. Transport for London figures indicate that one car club vehicle in London can replace the need for 10 privately owned vehicles.

http://www.whizzgo.co.uk

http://www.zipcar.com

Streetcar

It's been pointed out to me that this car micro-hire firm now has cars relatively close to Barking (in south Ilford) and a van in Barking. http://www.streetcar.co.uk/. This might provide a good alternative to car ownership for those who need occasional access to a car/van.

They are also looking for spaces to keep their cars - see http://www.streetcar.co.uk/locationsearch.aspx, so if you have a drive or reserved space, check out the deal.

I thought I'd mentioned streetcar on stibasa before - but I can't find anything