Transport Policy Sub-Committee
26 July 2010
Agenda item 9
TPSC/09/20
Colchester2020 Travel Plan Club – Car Share matching website
1) Liftshare contract termination
The Colchester2020 Travel Plan Club have collectively decided to terminate it’s contract with Liftshare the provider of the www.colchester2020traveltogether.com The reasons behind this decision are:
Cost – When a car share matching site was originally researched, the Travel Plan Club members agreed to fund the site from the Travel Plan Budget, which included a private group for each member organisation,. However over the years the costs have crept up, more private groups have been added plus the walk/cycle/taxi buddi scheme. The website now costs @£6k per annum and within the travel plan budget, after the fixed costs, this takes up the majority of the funding, leaving little for actually marketing or promoting car sharing let alone any other sustainable transport.
Usage – The site has not proved popular with only around 500 members signed up despite publicity events and promotions over the past years. Feedback from users indicate that many interested in car sharing would only like to share with someone they know or someone within their own organisation, however there is also a dislike for the registration process and logging of a journey as it is quite detailed and cumbersome. Because low numbers of people have signed up to each private group potential matches are limited.
Collective decision
The collective decision of the club is that this is too much to pay for one product that is not attracting high usage and that the money could be put to better use promoting car sharing in other ways and spreading the money more evenly across the different types of sustainable transport.
Colchester Institute and NHS North East Essex stopped using Liftshare some time ago, and developed their own in house car share systems, organising events to match people up and keeping a spreadsheet themselves. Along with dedicated car share bays, these schemes have proved very successful.
It was also agreed that as others were already running their own car share schemes outside of Liftshare that each Travel Plan Club member would in future fund their own car share matching scheme in whatever form this took, with the Travel Plan Club (TPC) providing marketing support.
2) University of Essex Car Sharing
Out of all the Travel Plan Club members, the University was the only one actively promoting Liftshare and with a reasonable number signed up (around 200). We appreciated that Charlotte wished to retain a database that staff and students could use to search for matches, so we researched the options.
Option 1 continue with Liftshare
Liftshare were approached for a price if the University was to continue with Liftshare alone. After negotiation the best price Liftshare could offer wasa £250 + vat transfer charge and a £1,150 + vat annual license for software and support.
At the same time other car share matching schemes on the market were researched and the best and most interesting one found was carshare.tv
Option 2 www.carshare.tv
They offer the same facilities as Liftshare in terms of a private group, admin function giving access to a range of statistics, ability for a member to build up buddy groups etc. However they also offer some additional features:
· Payment on a sliding scale linked to number of users
· Free unique url www.carshare.tv/xx and ability to upload your own logo to brand your site
· Alternatively a £25 charge per two years if you want your own domain name
· Secure text as well as email option for journey logging and searching
· Ability to upload bulk contact details and automatically send a user name and password
· Members can block anyone they don’t want contact from
· Funky green car branding
Carshare.tv would charge £140 per annum for the current 200 Uni members. (Less than 500 users category = 70p per user)
Carshare.tv would not charge the Liftshare equivalent of £1150 per annum until membership reached 2875. (Less than 5000 users category - 40p per user)
3) Key advantages of carshare.tv which makes them different to Liftshare.
Straight forward pricing - The pricing is very good value for money as you pay according to the number of members. There are no set up or other hidden costs. So you are only paying for those members who are prepared to find a car share match via a data base and not for maintaining an expensive website for a limited number. Your costs only increase as your members increase.
Ability to reach large numbers of people in one go to build up numbers quickly by uploading bulk names/email addresses. For example all car park users could be sent an email password and login inviting them to simply log their details. This more direct approach is likely to attract more sign ups than simply sending a link to a website as it takes away some of the work.
Text facility - The secure text facility is a modern and instant way of communicating. Lift offers or searches can be entered on the move and matches can be made when away from the office. The Travel Plan Club has negotiated 10 free texts for each new user (as opposed to the standard 5 free texts). This would particularly suit business travel and is likely to appeal to students.
Simplicity – The search/matching system is very simple and uncluttered visually. It doesn’t give you all the search options that Liftshare provide, but the level of data input required by Liftshare is off putting.
4) Disadvantages/Risks
Carshare.tv is a new company and Travel Plan Club members would be their first big clients. (It is also in discussions with Cornwall County Council.) Although this is a possible risk, following several conference calls with them the TPC and ECC feel assured that they are very committed and that their business model is focused on keeping the service simple and financially viable for their customers. It seems like a good opportunity to work with a new company offering a fresh approach to car share matching and who through their keenness to develop their product are open to suggestions and feedback to improve the site. They have already been very quick to respond to our comments and make improvements to the system. The University would always have access to their own data and therefore should carshare.tv not continue in the future, the University could transfer to another carsharing scheme or develop their own database.
As a new company they don’t have the huge data base that Liftshare have built up over the years. However given that most people are reluctant to look for lifts from outside their organisation this shouldn’t present a problem.
Carshare.TV do not offer the marketing support that Liftshare offer. However the Travel Plan Club will be marketing car sharing tailored to our own audiences needs. We will also have more money to spend on marketing.
5)Travel Plan Club members already committed or considering going ahead with carshare.tv
North Colchester Business Parks has already committed to use carshare.tv for a 12 month pilot of car sharing (they did have a private group with Liftshare as well). They were keen to use the carshare.tv branding so we registered them as www.carshare.tv/colchester (we have deliberately used Colchester as the url so that there is the opportunity for promotion further afield in the future)
Colchester Institute will use them for their student car share matching which they will launch in freshers week, with a competition to come up with the carshare.tv/url (they will continue to match staff manually until numbers build up and then consider carshare.tv)
Carshare.tv have agreed we can use their funky green car in promotions
6) Transfer to carshare.tv from Liftshare
If a decision was made to transfer to carshare.tv this would be very simple. So long as the data base of existing members is available, an account can be set up automatically on registration by the designated administrator, which takes a couple of minutes. There is then a 30 day free trial. All existing members can be uploaded and sent an email and password. If the University wanted it’s own domain name this would take a little longer.
7) TPSC is requested to agree funding for the University car share matching site and decide whether to continue with Liftshare or move to Carshare.tv
TPSC to note that it is appreciated that this comes as an additional cost that the University has not had to previously pay for. However the approach within the Travel Plan Club has always been democratic, with the decision to fund Liftshare centrally being made collectively some years ago. Again now a collective decision has been made that Liftshare is too expensive and one size doesn’t fit all and therefore members don’t want to retain Liftshare. Part of that agreement is that each Travel Plan Club member should fund their own car share matching scheme in whatever form they prefer. Colchester Institute and NHS North East Essex are already doing this.
The £5000 contribution made by the University and the contributions made by the other Travel Plan Club members goes into a central pot and mainly pays for the coordinator post and associated costs. It represents the University’s contribution as a member of Colchester2020 and a community leader in promoting sustainable and responsible travel to other Colchester organisations and communities as much as a contribution for which the University receives quid pro quo benefits. The Travel Plan Coordinators continue to provide support where required to all Travel Plan Club members as well as central marketing, lobbying etc on behalf of all. This is balanced with our work to expand the club and offer a free membership to smaller businesses. The money freed up through no longer funding the liftshare site can still be used for the benefit of all Travel Plan club members.
Emily Harrup & Andrew Budd
Colchester2020 Travel Plan Coordinator team