seven Answers fom: Robert reithofer

Statement: What I always wanted to tell the world about collaborative mobility

The axiom „to achieve more together“ is nothing new, but is becoming more important in respect of the sharing economy. There are not only economic advantages to bundling passenger journeys; as well the environment and the parking space situation is forcing us to rethink our approach away from a solo direct journey to a collaborative mobility model. During the last few decades society has changed positively concerning its possessive mentality. There is now a trend: I want to use and not own a mean of transportation.

Dream scenario: How I wish the mobile world looks like in 2060

I wish for an even better developed network of public transport that is linked with local car sharing and other local traffic models, especially in rural areas. The offer must be in price and time flexible and interesting so that the obligatory second car and even the first car become unnecessary. In urban areas the short distance public transport dominates and alternative options will need to be established. People will use mobility services in a more conscious way. Transportation of goods will widely take place on the railway.

My TOP-moment: In my eyes the biggest success in the history of collaborative mobility

For carsharing24/7 the first big milestone was to take on board an insurance partner, which was a difficult and time-consuming undertaking. On the one hand, from an insurance point of view, it is not possible to commercially loan one’s own car to another person without an adequate insurance product. On the other hand our users want to be 100% secured, because even the best car driver is never safe from scrapes, dents or even worse cases. When we received the 100th car in our vehicle pool it was a wonderful moment as well and gave us confidence that we are on the right way with our concept. 

My personal mobility behaviour: How I move privately

In the city I use public transport and longer distances I cover with the train. Apart from that I travel with a shared car, of course, which I have shared for three years with two friends. By the way, our car sharing team was the catalyst for the establishment of the platform of carsharing24/7, so that even more people could share their cars privately and easily.

Personal experiences with collaborative mobility: An incident which stayed in my mind

That was the feedback of one of the first users of our platform. He received not only a car, but a handful books for his children. Furthermore his car was returned cleaner than it was before. Basically, for a large part of carsharing24/7 users the experience is not only about the car driving, but has also a social component. You meet new people, talk about positive experiences and learn quickly that a collective use of resources saves money and is fun. Because I am personally in a carsharing24/7 team, I know about the numerous advantages – cheap, flexible and environmentally friendly – what more do you want? ;-)

The incident that sparked my interest in shared mobility solutions:

In 2010 a friend of mine moved to Vienna. At that time he considered selling his car because he would hardly use it in Vienna. I proposed then that I would help using the car and take half of the costs. Later a third person joined us and the first private car sharing team in Vienna was born. We evised a simple pricing model, which works still today. All fixed costs are added together (from loss in value over insurance to the point of the motorway vignette and tyre storage) and divided by 365 days. When someone uses the car he pays the day costs, which is fair because everyone shares the costs when the car isn’t driven.

The system worked so well that more and more people wanted to join. Finally, in April 2011 we developed the idea to launch a platform and to make the concept free, simple and accessible to a lot of people.

Ready for action: If I could, I would next…

… advance our latest expansion of the platform, the ridesharing. Therefore we are running a trial at the moment. In respect to the insurance: there are development possibilities for example for car sharing teams, young car sharers or stronger motorized vehicles. Besides this we want to concentrate not only on cars but expand the sharing model also to other vehicles - we already offer motorcycles, e-bikes, caravans and a sailboat. Through various partnerships with other mobility providers (public transport, rail traffic) a better integration of mobility alternatives shall be enabled. We also hope to develop some solutions in the field of hardware, for example an assisting system for an eco-friendly manner of driving. We could even enlarge the list - we have planned a lot for today.