In germany the concept of car-sharing is becoming increasingly popular. Most bigger cities have multiple providers, some are backed by car manufacturers, some are independent.

So if you want to pick up lots of beverages for your birthday party next weekend and don't feel like hauling them back in public transport or with your bike, you can just rent a car for x minutes, go shopping, drive home, park it in a reserved place in you neighborhood.

The price model of most providers is however not the best for the visit grandma in the countryside problem, but most of those carsharing companies have special tarifs with rental providers, so you can get a relatively cheap car for the weekend.

The way it technically works is almost always the same: You sign up and you get an RFID Key Card. You go on the internet or use an App to see if a car is available in your area and book it. You go to the car, open it with you keycard and find the keys in the glovebox. Sometimes you have to put in a PIN first. Some providers have a monthly fee, some just charge the usage.

Some Websites for those interested:

www.car2go.com - Backed by Daimler - Smart Cars even in some NA cities

www.greenwheels.com - indipendent, has been around for ages

www.flinkster.de - Backed by Deutsche Bahn (german railways), they also have bikes for rent

www.stadtmobil.de

www.drive-now.com - Sixt (biggest german rental firm) and BMW - nice 1-series and Minis

www.web.quicar.de - Volkswagen got into the business,too

+ multiple regional projects

I use Cambio for car sharing here in Belgium, and it works great for me. The price for one trip may sometimes feel steep, but overall it works out a lot cheaper for us than owning a car. Even when I had a company car, I paid more for it in taxes than I pay now in an average Cambio month. Also, getting to and from the closest pickup point is often faster than the time my neigbours spend looking for parking spaces.

So I'd recommend looking into it to anyone who doesn't need a car on a daily basis. (Personally, I'm lucky enough to live within a bikeable distance from work.)

And also some peer-to-peer players that are gaining a lot of traction.

A good overview is available here : http://futureofcarsharing.com/

Wow, that site looks beautiful, amazing HTML5 and CSS-work. The source looks handcoded, apart from Modernizer and jQuery.

I wonder how you would event start to design something like that.

Yeah, but they've broken my middle-mouse-button and I can't open new tabs on the links. Which is s shame. That seems to be happening more and more.

And ofcourse there is a car-less suburb of Freiburg: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.htm...

While living in Philadelphia, we got very used to seeing the ubiquitous Philly Car Share maroon cars. They partner with public and private enterprises for preferred parking spaces at a variety of venues. A good section of the front row of parking at IKEA was reserved for car-share. Its a great system and one noticeably absent from my current midwestern city.

When we lived in London, if we wanted to go somewhere that wasn't well served by rail we'd just rent a car. The couple of hundred pounds we'd spend on car rental was far less than the cost of owning a car.

In the Netherlands I'd just cycle there. Nothing is that far away. ;-)

I second this. I rent cars between 5 and 20 weekends a year, and have been doing this for about 6 years. It works out fine. The car is always in perfect condition, and it is not that expensive. It is true though that some trips that do not reach the importance threshold don't happen.

Also, taxis work well here in my hometown. About £8 will get me to the other side of the city, and a weekend hire costs about £50. I found owning a car, all-in, cost about £200/month (adding up tax, insurance, repair bills, etc) so it's cost-efficient to hire a vehicle when I need it.

Before we had our own business (necessitating a vehicle) we spent a couple of years without a car - for 2 people it was always cheaper (sometimes quite a lot) to hire a car than it was to take the train. Such a shame as I generally love travelling by train.

I think in this situation, rental cars would help.

If 6 days out of 7 you can do without a car, then spending $50 or whatever it costs to hire a car for the seventh day would make sense. It would take a long time for that to add up to $20,000 - $30,000 people spend to own a car. Not to mention services and other car sundries.

> $20,000 - $30,000 people spend to own a car

Yearly? That seems high. My car is paid off and I pay nothing for parking (other than whatever portion of my steep Baltimore City property taxes pays for it).

Anyway, let's say I drive 8000 miles in a year, my car gets 30 mpg and gas is $4 a gallon. 8000/30=267 gallons * 4 = $1068 per year on gas.

My car's paid off, but I bought it 5 years ago for $10k, so let's just amortize that evenly per year, and assume it will die at the end of the year, and say I paid $2k per year for it.

My maintenance in the past year has been minimal; I think my greatest cost was replacing a headlamp. (knock on wood). Let's say $250 just to be conservative.

Let's add another $250 for government taxes, fees, etc.

Therefore, in the last year, my car cost me about 1068+2000+250+250 = $3568, nearly an order of magnitude less than your assessment.

I assumed his estimate was for buying a new car, not yearly. Your numbers seem approximately right for yearly, although you also have to add in insurance. I think my maintenance expenses have averaged more like $500 as well, between routine maintenance and an oil change once a year, new tires every 4-5 years, battery change every 3-5 years, and miscellaneous mishaps (had to replace my windshield once after it got hit by a rock when parked in a city).

Good points both, my insurance is $1300/yr, and if we up the maintenance estimate we get ~$5000/yr.

I've been fortunate that my car has run with nearly no repairs, and city living hasn't done much damage to it besides some moron who ran into the bumper and drove off while it was parked.

(I assumed it was for buying a new car too, I just wanted to point out that the yearly cost of owning a car is much less than the number he was using.)

What's your insurance cost? Most people probably pay at least $500 per year for insurance.

But the majority of a car's cost is depreciation, which of course will quickly take your estimates up by 2-3x if you buy a new car. (Which, even though it's such an atrociously bad economic decision, a surprising lot of people seem to do.)

> What's your insurance cost?

Right, I forgot that, and you can see in a comment above that it brings my yearly cost up to about $5000.

You might have skipped insurance in your list, but I don't think the parent meant $20k-30k as the yearly cost (because that much is rare), but as the initial purchase price (which is common when buying new).

right, and I just mean to point out that it's not the relevant number to compare to, while providing a useful comparison.

I agree - maybe because that's exactly what I do.

Living in a crowded area near the Tel Aviv port (think shopping, clubs, restaurants and sometimes events) a car would've been a real hassle. In fact: If I'd have decided that I need a car here, this location wouldn't have made sense at all.

But I think I can get by without one, most of the time. And given the traffic here I consciously decided that I really don't want to participate on a regular basis anyway. I rent a car for trips across the country if needed, use a bike for the rest. Rarely a bus/shuttle taxi/taxi. Trains are .. well .. kind of pointless for my uses so far.

I'm convinced that I save money this way and do 'Something Good' (tm), both for myself and the environment.

As an Israeli living abroad (Vienna in my case, have been here for 7 years), the lacking mass transport in Tel Aviv (you can kinda get by without a car, but it's not easy and as you say even if you live in a central location you still need a car sometimes) is my most major reason to not even consider Tel Aviv a real option right now (neither me nor my girlfriend have driving licenses or the will to ever have a car).

Even just dropping the silly no-transit-on-saturday rule would be a huge improvement (then you could actually get pretty much anywhere you need to, just not very quickly and you'd have to live in a farily central location inside Tel Aviv proper).

This really puzzles me - if significantly poorer cities such as Budapest and Prague can pull off decent mass-transit, how come Tel Aviv can't?

    I rent a car for trips across the country if needed

How do you visit people outside Tel Aviv on the weekend? Probably my most common ailment in your situation would be that I couldn't easily visit family members and friends even if they live in greater Tel Aviv on weekends, since the buses/trains don't work on Saturdays and shared taxis don't go everywhere.

So - I have a license and love to drive. But here it is ~different~. The whole traffic 'culture' constantly makes me think that I'd cause accidents here: My Autobahn mindset doesn't translate to the driving behavior here, so I fear that _I_ will crash into someone, someday, because of 'No, he certainly won't do ... BOOM'.

Agreed, the Saturday issue is annoying sometimes. You can go by train as far as I am informed (but where to? The options are limited) and the sherut + cab solution works. Bus, (sherut,) cab are ~cheap~ here.

In TLV I need no car, never. For shopping it might be annoying sometimes, but that's really just my own lazyness, I think.

Renting cars: I don't need one without planning ahead. If I do that, I can easily rent it in advance (ignoring the Saturday issue again). In the greater area I still try to use the bike. A car is for visits to the dead sea, to Haifa, Jerusalem (train works just as well though) etc. I don't have family here and friends are ~local~, i.e. TLV, Ramat Gan, Ramat Aviv etc. => Bike

This really puzzles me - if significantly poorer cities such as Budapest and Prague can pull off decent mass-transit, how come Tel Aviv can't?

Can you provide some source? Since, at least according to EUROSTAT the Prague NUTS-2 Region is in EU's top 10[1] and Tel Aviv is not even in the Middle East's top 10. Also, a lot of the machinery for the Czech mass transit systems (trams, trolleybuses, metro trains, Esko (commuter) trains, buses, fare collection systems) is produced locally, thus directly contributing to the economy. Israel just doesn't have those centuries of excellent tradition in machine-engineering and construction.

1. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/1-18022010...

We were in Krakow recently and just about cried seeing the number of trams running through the place - in Edinburgh we're spending about a billion pounds for one tram line that goes from not-quite-the-airport to the city center.

    Can you provide some source?

I don't have a source, the impression was based on my subjective knowledge that my Czech friends earn significantly less than my Israeli friends.

I know a lot of people in both countries - 1000 euro/month is a nice middle-class salary in Prague, in Tel Aviv that's just barely making ends-meet, if at all (it's quite possibly that your rent alone will be close to that much, and not in a particularly nice apartment either).

Also, why it is only decent? The Prague mass transit system has comfortable clean and warm vehicles, extremely good coverage (14 commuter train lines, ~24 light rail, 3 metro and hundreds of bus routes), short intervals and all of that is also in the suburbs. I have been to a lot of places, but haven't seen a system that functions much better.

Oh, and it costs <20EUR per month...

This was very much not the point of my post :)

I was talking about Tel Aviv and used Budapest and Prague as off hand examples - if you wish you can replace them with Cracow and Bratislava.

Thank you, it's nice to hear this as a resident. Alas, I'd also go for "decent" because although the transit system is good, it's being sabotaged by the city council - it prefers to fund building highways through the city center, and to sell off the profitable parts of the public transit company. Dark times are ahead, what with much of the rolling stock nearing the end of life and much-needed extensions being deferred indefinitely for purely pork-barrel reasons.

I've done the math when I considered switching to zipcar and even here you barely break even. I spend just over $200 a month on my car (amortized maintenance, depreciation, insurance, etc.) before gas, which is pretty much the same number as here. With costs the same, I just go with the option where my car is always outside. `

We live in the center of Edinburgh and the parking in the center of town is split into standard "Pay and Display" and zoned resident-only parking (which we pay a fixed amount per year for). This seems to work fairly well - we have a car that we really don't use that often (my wife and I both walk to work and our son walks to school) but we just keep it parked on one of the residents parking spaces on the street outside our flat.

You have to have proof of actually living in the relevant zone to get a residents parking permit - but this is pretty easy to do (they check you against the council tax register).

Japan's solution is to forbid owning a car if you can't prove you have a parking space for it (as a rented space or you own it, choice is yours). It worked pretty well IMO, and car rental was cheap enough to cover the need to see grandma case.

BTW Paris is testing the casual car rental strategy also.

It goes even further if i'm not mistaken, you have to prove you have TWO parking spaces, one at home and one at work.

I didn't know, but it would be logical, yes.

The fun part is, there is no strong definition of how much space you need to park a car, you have to prove you can actually park your car in the space you declare. An officer follows you to your parking place, and stands there watching your maneuvers.

I don't think you have to prove that. In big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, most people use public transport to commute anyway. Although it's not mandatory, in practice every company will reimburse your commuting costs if you take public transportation.

Yes. And in Tokyo transportation is cheap. Taxis only cost 710 yen per kilometer and all trains stop 12h30 at night.

Taxis are rather expensive compared to Nyc . Trains are cheap tho

You are clearly not living in the city center of Amsterdam.

The system works perfectly for people living there: those who want to keep their own car can get a relatively cheap parking permit, and most only use their car for exactly those rare scenarios you've described. It takes 10 minutes to get to the highway. Nobody is complaining, having a car is simply pointless 95% of the time.

It's a very simple solution and it works.

Are you living in Amsterdam?

You have to wait years for a parking permit. And when you want to park your car you have to drive around minutes before you will find a place to park.

I live in Amsterdam (I'm an American used to US-car-culture).

I have a bike. It lets me go almost anywhere in Amsterdam, cheaper, more easily, and generally faster than any other mode of transportation. Sometimes you get a bit wet.

There are a few distances inside the city which are not handy. For those I use the wonderful tram/bus/metro network.

Occasionally I'm lazy and don't want to bike, or need to go somewhere strange. Then I grab a car2go (electric smart car, €.30/min, including electricity, insurance, parking anywhere). When I get to my destination I park it anywhere and end the rental.

Since moving here, my transportation costs have gone from many-hundreds-of-dollars per month for a car/gas/insurance/repairs/tolls/parking/fines in the US, to around €40 month for a bike, public transport usage, and short-term car rentals.

It is much cheaper, and much more convenient, to call a taxi or rent a van when the above options don't fulfill my transportation needs.

That mode of living only works if you primarily travel _within_ the city or to a few well-connected cities in the region.

Travelling from Amsterdam to places without a train station kinda sucks. In some cases, even travelling to places _with_ a train station takes almost twice as long by public transport.

I live in the middle of the Jordaan.

And while waiting for a permit (about 2-3 years, but we live in the area with the longest waiting lists) we could park the care somewhere within a 10-15 minute tram/bike ride. Which is not a big deal if you use the car about once a month. Neither is taking 5 minutes to find a parking spot.

All of these are a small price to pay for the convenience of not needing a car 99% of the time.

Parking is not that big an issue in Amsterdam in general compared to many other major cities. Largely because few people are stupid enough to use a car when a bike or public transport will do...

I'm coming to Amsterdam twice a year during huge trade shows at RAI, and I have no particular problem getting parked in the centre, near the Dam and al. Really, Amsterdam is quite easy, not worse than Paris.

Couldn't you just rent a car? I haven't been to the Netherlands so may be I am missing something obvious here.

In the U.S. now you can rent not just by the day, but also get hourly rentals like Zipcar or peer rentals like GetAround. It is still early days for both those options, but those and similar new developments may make this a much easier problem to solve across the world.

Others have suggested renting. There's also car sharing, which makes a lot of sense for exactly the situations you suggest.

What's more, for a country the size and density of the Netherlands, anybody should be able to visit their Grandma using public transportation (buses, too, not just trains). I'm not saying it's possible right now, but it ought to be.

It is possible to get everywhere using public transport in the Netherlands, but the time difference is huge. If I use public transport to get to my girlfriends parents house it takes 60 to 90 minutes, if I go by car it takes 30 to 40 minutes.

I vastly prefer a longer ride in which I have my hands free and can do a little work or read a book, versus being chained to the steering wheel in a car. To each his own, of course.

Okay, I guess I was talking more about "viable" than "possible". Or maybe, it should be viable for 80% of all trips and at least possible for the remaining 20%. I guess you can't realise it for all of them, that's just a consequence of urban sprawl.

or if you are only using it to visit your grandma on the other side of the country, maybe just rent a car for a couple days? or if you have a car that is paid for leave it on the outskirts where it is cheaper and take transit to it?