I spend a fortune on taxis around town running between meetings and like most people I commute via public transport in to the city center because things like parking and traffic make it impossible to drive. This new solution that has been launched in Germany by BMW and car rental company Sixt
is something that could change how we use cars around the world. In one of the first systems of it's kind users can jump in to a group of shared cars that are parked around the city by simply swiping your card and putting in a pin number. The cars are branded so as you can easily spot them and just jump in one. If you can't see one in the street you can use a mobile app or the website app to find our where the nearest car is and reserve it so as nobody grabs it before you. I'd have lots of questions about this and some worries like what happens if you don't lock it and somebody steals it and just how practical it is but in theory it is an amazing idea. You don't even need to worry about the fueling costs and the best thing about the whole thing is that it sounds like using this service costs a fraction of what it would to run a car on a full time basis. Given that you only use the car when you need it rather than in and out of town it should cut down on carbon emissions as well. We've seen how well shared bike services work in cities and I think this is a logical next step and I'd love it if it came to my city.
The cars are all BMWs and Minis (Owned by BMW) and as you can see from the branding they are very distinctive and wouldn't be hard to spot out and about.
Getting a car couldn't be any easier once you have signed up via the site and all the boring things like insurance are done before hand. It seems like they have made every move possible to make jumping in to a car as easy as possible.
