The problem is that zipcar has a membership fee of £49 a year, so it's not worth joining unless you think you are likely to use it.
I could rent a car in Cambridge for less than £22 a day and a zipcar is £7 an hour, so I'd have to want to use a car for less than 3 hours quite frequently to justify the membership fee. Or it would have to be much more convenient than hiring for a day from a car hire place. A lot of the circumstances in which I might be useful to have a car for an hour or two are situations when I could use a taxi and fares would be less than £14.
I don't think that the zipcar model works for most people when you start crunching the numbers, particularly as they are only based in areas that are densely populated and well served by public transport so short car journeys are less necessary.
Re: For when things have calmed down
Date: 2014-05-25 04:33 am (UTC)I could rent a car in Cambridge for less than £22 a day and a zipcar is £7 an hour, so I'd have to want to use a car for less than 3 hours quite frequently to justify the membership fee. Or it would have to be much more convenient than hiring for a day from a car hire place. A lot of the circumstances in which I might be useful to have a car for an hour or two are situations when I could use a taxi and fares would be less than £14.
I don't think that the zipcar model works for most people when you start crunching the numbers, particularly as they are only based in areas that are densely populated and well served by public transport so short car journeys are less necessary.