Amtrak and Zip Car-Solving the Rental Problem

gprimr1 wrote:I just signed up for zip car and noticed they have a space for Amtrak Guest Rewards number. I was thinking zip cars could solve a lot of problems related to transportation at train stations.

I LOVE zip cars and it does sound like a good solution for the transportation problems at amtrak stations in urban centers, but I don't know how it would work in rural area's (since they may not be used enough to be profitable for zipcar), personally it solves my transportation problems in new york city when I have to go somewhere that public transit does not go or when I have to transport something that I can't bring on public transit.

I'm all for zipcars. And if zipcar finds it useful to have a car near a particular station great.

But realistically having a car near the train station that is available to about 40,000 people nationwide, of the 300 million who might be traveling, is not solving any problem for Amtrak or its customers. Rental cars at stations solve a problem for the large run of Amtrak customers. Zip cars near stations are just a little extra for the occasional zipcar customer riding Amtrak.

Metro-North has already partnered with Zipcar at selected Westchester stations and also began an alliance program with Enterprise rentals at many stations.

ne plus ultra wrote:I'm all for zipcars. And if zipcar finds it useful to have a car near a particular station great.

But realistically having a car near the train station that is available to about 40,000 people nationwide, of the 300 million who might be traveling, is not solving any problem for Amtrak or its customers. Rental cars at stations solve a problem for the large run of Amtrak customers. Zip cars near stations are just a little extra for the occasional zipcar customer riding Amtrak.

I visited Pitt, stayed downtown near the station, and used Zip to see afew places. they fill a nice niche that isn't currently covered by rental cars. if you're lucky, you'll have both (Philly has TWO car sharing companies and several rental car companies in addition to regional rail and transit so I guess we should consider ourselves lucky). If I were going to some place like orlando, a full rental would be more useful and I'd imagine the niche for zip would be smaller. it would be useful in baltimore as well. perhaps the perfect nice is moderately sized cities that may have less extensive transit systems, fewer cabs, etc.

R36 Combine Coach wrote:Metro-North has already partnered with Zipcar at selected Westchester stations and also began an alliance program with Enterprise rentals at many stations.

So has Washington's Metro; there are dedicated Zipcar spots at a number of stations. As for Amtrak, I think they could be an important feature for daytrippers. The Zipcar model (assuming they're making money) appears compatible with have just a couple of cars in a location, whereas the traditional rental car companies seem to require a much larger volume of use.

My only reservation about zip car is that there should be a one-time use option for those people who are not members.

The real problem with ZipCar is that the business focus is on urban, liberal academics. This is a rental car company that pretty much ignores the business and personal travel markets. Looking at my own area, all of the available cars are in and around a local college campus. There is not a single ZipCar at the local airport or train station - and that underlines the lack of credibility that ZipCar has for normal drivers who have real world travel needs.

I've been a Zipcar memeber for the past 20 months, and must say that I'm overall pleased with the service. The freedom from many of the hassles of car ownership and even car rentals have been very well addressed by Zipcar. While their overall main focus market is college campuses, they are also prevalent in cities where transit is good for most things, but periodic regular car use may be needed. To me, that constitutes "real world needs" just as much as renting a car to go to a client meeting. I wouldn't rent a Hertz to run errands over the span of an afternoon, but I could rent a Zipcar for three days if desired.

I've yet to use my Zipcard in other cities, though I've explored it a few times. I'd much rather tap my card and be on my merry way than signing form after form. This feature alone is something that other rental companies should be envious of, and look to emulate for regular customers.

The comparison of Zipcar to traditional agencies in most respects is like comparing the Evening Commuter Train to the Hamptons with the F train taking people home along Queens Boulevard - not likely to be much overlap, but each important nonetheless to its core market.

The Metropolitan wrote:I've been a Zipcar memeber for the past 20 months, and must say that I'm overall pleased with the service. The freedom from many of the hassles of car ownership and even car rentals have been very well addressed by Zipcar. While their overall main focus market is college campuses, they are also prevalent in cities where transit is good for most things, but periodic regular car use may be needed. To me, that constitutes "real world needs" just as much as renting a car to go to a client meeting. I wouldn't rent a Hertz to run errands over the span of an afternoon, but I could rent a Zipcar for three days if desired.

I've yet to use my Zipcard in other cities, though I've explored it a few times. I'd much rather tap my card and be on my merry way than signing form after form. This feature alone is something that other rental companies should be envious of, and look to emulate for regular customers.

The comparison of Zipcar to traditional agencies in most respects is like comparing the Evening Commuter Train to the Hamptons with the F train taking people home along Queens Boulevard - not likely to be much overlap, but each important nonetheless to its core market.

It's a very interesting concept and I can see where this or something like this could have a synergy with Amtrak unlike with conventional car rental companies. No question the logistics factors are unique to Zipcar but I wouldn't go so far to say the ease of use factor is a disadvantage for the traditional outfits. I rent dozens of cars per year and never sign a thing. Only show my driver's license and go. It doesn't get a whole lot easier than that.

As a long term (+- 4 years) ZipCar member, I find that it is almost useless as a train-station connection for intercity travel. Since the cars must be returned to their original location, they are best suited for day trips. When travelling, I am likely to use a ZipCar near the hotel I'm staying at, but never near the station. At home, I use ZipCars near my home, rather than ones near transit points.

goodnightjohnwayne wrote:The real problem with ZipCar is that the business focus is on urban, liberal academics. This is a rental car company that pretty much ignores the business and personal travel markets. Looking at my own area, all of the available cars are in and around a local college campus. There is not a single ZipCar at the local airport or train station - and that underlines the lack of credibility that ZipCar has for normal drivers who have real world travel needs.

I wonder if you've been led astray by this thread. Zipcar decidedly is NOT a rental car company. It's more like a coop. One-off uses would be devastating to their business model. This thread would make you think that Zipcar could possibly offer Amtrak something. It can't. Not unless we become a nation of zipcar users instead of a nation of car owners. I'm extremely sympathetic to Zipcar and its goals, but Amtrak is only helped by things that are available to some real proportion of its riders. Zipcar is not and can not be available to the overwhelming number of Amtrak riders.

Having said all that, you've mischaracterized Zipcar clients. At least here in Chicago, Zipcar clients tend to be, not liberal academics, but just regular people, mostly young, who live in dense neighborhoods, can't afford a car of their own and don't need one very often. Zipcar is necessarily urban, and it makes no sense to criticize it for being urban. Anywhere that is not urban, almost everyone needs a car on a daily or near daily basis, so a shared Zipcar couldn't fill their needs. The average Zipcar driver drives 1,000 miles/year. That's only feasible if you live in a dense neighborhood and can walk or take transit most places ... or if you're a fanatic. And there's no sound business model in marketing to fanatics (pace Fox News), so they stick with normal people in dense neighborhoods.

As an example, it looks like there are fewer than 300 zipcars in Chicago, certainly one of the two most well-served transit cities in the country. That might correspond to 5,000 users, so at best, about 1 in 1,000 of the people in the Metro area. Even assuming Zipcar users are 3 times as likely as others to use Amtrak, which I'm not convinced is true, you're talking about 1 in every 300 users of Amtrak who could even consider using a Zipcar at the other end of their trip.

That's in Chicago. There are only 50 zipcar cities nationwide. Bloomington, IN, has only 4 cars. Elon, NC, home of Elon University, has 3. (I guess it's also possible you thought there was a focus on academic types because of the number of college towns listed, but actually quite the opposite. The focus of these cars isn't liberal academics. It's middle-class college kids who otherwise wouldn't drive at all while they were at school. And the zipcars in these places are more like recruiting tools than profit centers. The idea is to plant the seed while kids are in college.) At any rate, the point being that there are precious few actual Zipcar members, so a Zipcar strategy for Amtrak makes no sense. It can't help enough of their riders to matter.

Zipcar may find it profitable to have an Amtrak strategy, though. That, I think, is what is playing out in the posts above. Having a Zipcar near a handful of Amtrak stations certainly doesn't hurt Amtrak, may help a tiny bit, and it helps Zipcar a lot, because it helps Zipcar members feel like it can really serve nearly ALL their car needs.

We were actually thinking of joining Zipcar, or the local competitor I-Go. But then my fiancee's parents gave her a hand-me-down car. We wouldn't have bought a second vehicle (I do have a vehicle - a pick-up I need for my business, but I drive it very little outside the season - I didn't even start it in January.) but having been given one, it's more economical to keep it than not.