Summarize - Research Paper Example

Communau A brief Introduction Communauto, a Montreal-based car-sharing organization in Quebec, Canada serves as an established organization since1994. It is functional mainly in four cities of Quebec. Communauto calls itself a social and an environmental enterprise. Its goal is to bring an economic and expedient ownership of vehicle to its customers on low rate, no personal expenses like fuel-costs, parking space, maintenance etc. to list down. In simple words, it makes one vehicle accessible to multiple users for any time-period chosen by its customers themselves.

It claims to be an eco-friendly option of transportation, and factually as having reduced the harmful greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1 tonne on average (cited in Tecsult Inc., 2006). Communauto Car-sharing Service: Useful or Not? Before concluding anything about the usefulness of Communauto service for the people, an analysis has been done in the further part of the paper. The usefulness of this service is largely dependent on the response of its users, benefits that car-sharing provides, the target group of people being wide or narrow, the USP (unique selling proposition) of the Communauto service and the market competitors.

About Communauto Car-Sharing Service. It involves multiple users using fewer vehicles. It leads to reduction in congestion, pollution-level, number of vehicles per household and reduction of money spent on individual transportation. Communauto Users. The corporate usage of Communauto is more as compared to individual car-sharing, people who drive less and youth associating with ‘Green’ keeping in consideration style and comfort also can be included among the general users of Communauto vehicle service.

The usefulness of Communauto lies in the information that its vehicles are eco-friendly through zero-emission cars, low per family car-expenses, lot of stations for Communauto car pick-up, 24 hours availability and low rent. It promises to bring in all Nissan LEAF cars by this year to highlight style and environmental concern. Therefore, health cost due to air pollution reduced by upto FF 1 billion (Wilhite and Attali, 2000). No repairs, routine maintenance, no parking space are a few more gains of Communauto cars.

To strengthen this, a potential market share for car-sharing was found to be of 2.5 million users. On the contrary, it gives less control and independence in return. Societal problems are also attributed to cars; according to which car ownership is valued and associated with status. Further, it cannot be used for emergency purposes, when spending any extra time in picking up a Communauto from a station at some distance might be a bad option. Communauto does have 300+ pick-up points in the 4 cities but it might not be always possible to have a Communauto pick-up point in short diameter.

And, how would Communauto cars deal with the operational problems during winters is a question, as they move on battery and electricity. Communauto’s main services are similar to that of any local rental taxi services, making it difficult to give a good reason for subscribing to it. Now, to mention about what the users of Communauto think about the service, some found the rent and subscription charges to be lesser than the local car services, but, majority of them found it more expensive than having a regular car.

This brings a major decline while deciding to be a member of this car-sharing service. Conclusion: Main goal of Communauto car-sharing service is its environment concern and use of eco-friendly cars, reducing congestion on road and economic benefit to its users; but how would it deal with the sudden requirements that only a regular and owned vehicle can fulfill. For short-term use, it incurs a high subscription cost, which is too high for a temporary means of transport. Taking into consideration the arguments from the former part of this paper, it partially indicates that Communauto service cannot replace the regular and routine transport; and, the major reasons for which an owned car is used are not completely met.

References Communauto, 2003. Car-sharing, a different kind of car use [Online] (Updated March 2011), Available at: http://www.communauto.com/ [Accessed 30 March 2011]. Tecsult inc., 2006. Le projet auto + bus : evaluation d’initiatives de mobilite combinee dans les villes canadiennes. The bus project: Evaluation of initiatives in combined mobility in Canadian cities. p247. Wilhite, Harold et Attali, Sophie, 2000. Car sharing in France : A study of the potential benefits,barriers and alternatives.

Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maitrise de l'Energie (In French). p37. Available at: http://www.communauto.com/ [Accessed 30 March 2011].