- Communauto
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Communauto File:Communauto Logo.jpgType Private Industry Transport Founded 1994 Headquarters Montreal, Canada Key people Benoît Robert (Chairman and CEO) Services Carsharing Employees Equivalent to 68 full-time Website www.communauto.com Communauto is a company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, that operates a carsharing service in 4 cities in Quebec: Montreal, Quebec City, Gatineau and Sherbrooke. It currently has 25,000 users who share a fleet of approximately 1300 vehicles (as of September 2011). The users per vehicle ratio can rise in winter to 20 users per vehicle and drops to about 15 users per vehicle in summer.
Contents
History
Founded in Quebec City in 1994 by Benoît Robert, its current CEO, Communauto is the oldest carsharing organization in North America. Cycling advocate and environmentalist Claire Morissette (1950–2007) played a major role in its evolution starting in 1995, when Communauto established itself in Montreal as a private company.
Mission
Communauto defines itself as a company with a social, urbanistic and environmental mission. Its unique goal is to provide a convenient and economical alternative to owning a car. The underlying objective is to foster a more rational use of the automobile by:
- lowering car ownership rates;
- lowering the number of kilometres driven annually per capita.
Impact
The impact of carsharing in Quebec was evaluated independently as part of a study conducted by Tecsult Inc. in 2006. The study noted, among other things, that nearly three-quarters of Communauto users either sold a vehicle or chose not to purchase one after deciding to subscribe to the service, and that they lowered their yearly greenhouse gas emissions by more than one tonne on average.
Criticism
Accessing Communauto membership is difficult for Canada newcomers and people without or short credit history. There's a charge of an additional $500,00 if your credit history is under 12 months old, summing it up to +$1.000,00 down payment at the time of subscription.
Carsharing industry code of ethics
In October 2007, in collaboration with eight other North American carsharing organizations, Communauto started developing a code of ethics to guide and strengthen this growing industry.
The main goal of the code is to enable the public to distinguish between public-interest carsharing services, whether privately operated or not, and other commercial undertakings.
References
- Metro France – "Communauto, l’Autolib’ québécois" (in FRENCH)
- Bibliographic resources on carsharing, provided by Communauto (in FRENCH)
- Communauto in the press (in FRENCH)
External links
Categories: Car sharing | Companies based in Montreal | Companies established in 1994 | Privately held companies of Canada
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