Feel free to email me privately if you’d like more info.

Charm

We give lots of thought to integrating our service with other sustainable transport options. Here’s some of the things we are doing:

1. Always ensuring our parks are near a train station, tram stop or bus route.

2. Encouraging our council partners to put in bicycle loops at all parks to support cycling to our parks (some do, some don’t… )

3. Working with Metlink to promote PT and carsharing as a way to live car free. You can check out our latest campaign with Metlink – “Flex you Metcard” on the Metlink website at
http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/news/sponsorship/metropolitan_general/flexicar_and_metlink

4. Lobbying the State Government to integrate car sharing into the PT system via the new smartcard ticketing system “myki”. You can read about our efforts and progress with this from as far back as when we were called Flo Carshare (note we’re still the same people)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/car-sharing-to-join-public-transport-system/2005/08/19/1123958220291.html

With regards to your comments on car-pooling or ride-sharing. There are certainly already a number of organisations out there trying to do what you suggest. Here are a few local ones I’m aware of (note I haven’t used any of them so these aren’t recommendations):
http://www.thecarpool.com.au
http://www.ecarpool.com.au
http://www.ozcarpool.com.au

I have also recently noticed this crowd advertising on Facebook – PickupPal http://www.pickuppal.com. They are international, Canadian based I think. They look pretty organised and their service can be added as an application to your Facebook profile…?! But again I haven’t used them personally.

So I think at this stage Flexicar is going to focus on the Australian car-share market (there is still so much to do!) and leave car-pooling or ride-sharing to other emerging organisations.

That said, Robin Case, the founder of North America’s largest car share service Zipcar http://www.zipcar.com, and someone we drew inspiration from in setting up Flexicar, left Zipcar after five years to start GoLoco http://www.goloco.org a ride-sharing organisation. GoLoco currently only operates in North America and the UK.

So who knows, maybe we’ll follow Robin’s lead again in a few years time..?? Until then making Flexicar an integral part of sustainable transport systems in Australia’s major cities will remain our goal!

Cheers, Monique
Flexicar Co-founder

I had an idea for the friendly flexicar staff!

Why doesn’t someone do fuel top ups of all the cars on tuesdays to save money for the business (and hopefully us as clients) + saves us from having to do it ourselves (sometimes on a weekend which works out to be more expensive) during our driving time!? Just an idea I got from the inspiration of the K Rudd government’s fuel watching scheme…

Great team there! Your friendly staff are always helpful and cherry! Thanx for hours of driving time. Love the scheme and so do my friends that I tell about flexicar!

Keep the promotions coming! They’re great!

I am pessimistic that governments will not lead on a holistic sustainable transport policy, hence the need for good folk like yourself to take the lead. Governments have far too much trouble dousing public transport fires and finding the will to locate bike paths where they are needed. I cannot recall the Victorian Government ever attempting to deal seriously (other than by using nice words, which is what fills most of the Climate Summit Paper) with car pooling – for example by providing incentives or more importantly by creating the infrastructure to assist people in the suburbs connect.

Oh, I miss Flo! She was so less corporate and managerial speak-like than Flexi!

Anyway, one thing I’d like to see is some leaflets or cards with info on flexicar, left in the cars’ glove box. I recall seeing some last year but now the cars I’ve used only have the tear-off cards with the $35 voucher deal. Those also have good info but they don’t really work for letterboxing, because the assumption is that it’s a personal referral situation.
Which is what I was getting to next… if you had these info cards in the cars the users could take a bunch with them and drop them in a bunch of letterboxes in the vicinity of the car – after all that’s where you’re most likely to find new subscribers – close to the cars. Your monthly email could ask us in your ever-charming tone of voice to get going!

You could also remind the people at the end of their rental to take some cards and letterbox them. I wonder if you can link up your booking system so that 30 minutes prior to the end of each booking you send an sms to the driver saying ‘Don’t forget to take some cards and drop them in letterboxes on your way home from the car’ or similar. The place where i get my hair cut always reminds me by sms a day before my appointment – though i don’t know if this is sent manually or automatically…

OK enough great ideas for one day! ;o)

Flex on!
Martin, Prahran