Alpes AutoPartage : a car sharing system in the French Alps
Best Practice
Topics
Mobility
Regional value added, Policies and instruments
Short description
Alpes Autopartage is the first system to offer a car sharing system in a French alpine city. This service comes as a complement to public transport, bicycles and in some cases private cars. Individuals and companies can become members and have access to the cars belonging to Alpes Autopartage, after having booked via internet or telephone.
Project executive
Alpes AutoPartage is a non profit organisation, founded in 1999 by an independent consultant, specialised in the field of urban services and environment. The organisation is supported by a team of urban economists and activists of environmental non-profit organisations. To this day, it counts 35 members, 5 of which are associates (they have important shares in the capital of the organisation).
Participants
- France Autopartage, cooperative of companies offering car sharing services in Strasbourg, Marseille, Lyon and Grenoble. The car sharing experiences in the other French cities has helped set up the system in Grenoble. The members of Alpes Autopartage also have direct access to the cars in the other cities respresented in the cooperative.
- Eileo is a computer company which sets up and runs the management system which allows the members to book and have access to the cars.
Objectives
(1) The project aims at offering a complementary mobility service, when public transport, feet or bicycles are not adapted. (2) It also can contribute to reducing the mobility costs of individuals, who do not need to possess a car anymore, if their use of cars is limited. (3) The project also wishes to contribute to reducing the problems of car traffic and parking in cities. (4) Finally, Alpes Autopartage hopes to make its contribution to the development of a French car sharing network (which already counts the cities of Paris, Strasbourg, Lyon and Marseille). (5) Quantitative objectives : 12 cars after 1 year, 50 cars and 1000 members after about 3 years.
Activities
The system started functionning on May 20th 2005.6 cars are accessible. They are distributed in 4 stations in the center of Grenoble, where the potential customers have been evaluated to be the most important. 3 park houses have accepted to reserve specific spaces for the Autopartage cars. The reservation system and equipment of the cars has been set up by the firm Eiléo. The city of Grenoble has decided to suscript to the system to complete it's own battery of cars.
Process
The project is still in the launching phase. This phase should last about one year.
Results
To this day, 35 drivers are members of the organisation. This corresponds to the plan. However the actual use made of the cars is under the estimations, since most of the 1st members don't have cars and are accustomed to living with a very limited use of cars. 6 cars are in service. The aim is to reach 12 cars after one year of funcionning, and about 50 cars and 1000 members after 3 years.
Evaluation
The service is still very new in Grenoble. Therefor, no evaluation has been done yet. A 1st evaluation is planned after 6 months of functionning.
Difficulties
The main difficulty at the beginning was the lack of funding to launch the service. Today another major difficulty is the communication and relationship with the medias, which takes a lot of time.
Budget
242 000 euros / 3 years (Euro)
Financial backer
Agence pour le Développement et la Maïtrise de l'Energie (ADEME);
Conseil Général de l'Isère;
Grenoble Alpes Métropole;
Fondation MACIF;
Autofinancing : commercial income due to the service
