By Laurie Swede
Interaction
Zipcar is available at the Rappahannock Parking Deck which is visible in the picture above and also at the Mason Pond Drive lot across from Buchanon Hall. These cars are not available in every single lot, however, they are featured in a major lot as in the picture.
Resource Characteristics
Zipcar is a form of alternative transportation where people can create an account with the company’s app, prove and validate their license and form of payment, and then rent a car to be able to use for however long they want. This modern format of transportation is basically a quick and convenient car rental system. The resource within this transaction program is the cars that you have to pay for in order to utilize and drive around. These car-sharing techniques are aimed at reducing household emissions and the accessibility of automobiles. “Carsharing reduces between 110,000 to 155,000 metric tons of GHGs per year, when strictly evaluating observable emission changes. When considering the full impact, carsharing prevents between 160,000 to 225,000 metric tons of GHG emissions per year. T” (Martin & Shaheen, 2011). This article details carsharing as a whole and its impact on the environment as well as households. The massive amounts of carbon dioxide that could be saved by rise sharing is encouraging for the expansion of this sector of the automobile and transportation industry.
Governance/User Characteristics
“As a subsidiary of the larger Avis Budget Group, Zipcar provides vehicles for hourly or daily use in over thirty major metro markets and at over 500 college campuses worldwide. Zipcar now reports having more than 10,000 vehicles in its worldwide fleet” (Schwieterman, 2017). With this gross growth within the market and avid advertisement, Zipcar is taking universities by storm. This program has a worldwide fleet of 10,000 vehicles and many of which are used at college campuses. George Mason and Zipcar have partnered to have this resource available on campus, and since it is a university, there is a discount for students. Zipcar runs and governs these cars through their hub and has thoroughly implemented safeguards against theft.
Social/cultural/economic/political setting or related ecosystems
“Predictability of system dynamics (RS7). Systems dynamics need to be sufficiently predictable that users can estimate what would happen if they were to establish particular harvesting rules or noentry territories” (Ostrom, 2009). This concept is a large part of the entire Zipcar concept. The predictability relies on an app that will show you which Zipcars are available. However, these Zipcars are only available at two lots on campus and thus must be expanded into other lots. In addition, anyone can reserve a zip car thus taking this stock out of play when it has been used up across all lots, however, it is more accessible to the college student because of the lower age requirement of 18 and the lower membership fee.
College campuses have limited parking spaces as well as outrageous fees to park your car in these lots. With college students being unable or unwilling to pay the sky-high fee to rent a single space in the parking lot, they must look to alternatives. The alternative to owning a car is car sharing or taking public transit. George Mason has implemented a few Zipcars in two of its lots which are slightly inconvenient for students who live near neither the Rappahannock Parking Deck or the Mason Pond Parking lot. In addition, the collaborative culture of colleges and universities is another critical driving factor for the importance and implementation of carsharing because it saves money and creates memories.
What can we do?
Saving money is vital to the college student and “the sharing economy is a modern technology-based method of whether collaboration or business management that enables the peers to allocate the already existing tangible and intangible resources free of charge or for a fee” (Šiuškaitė, Pilinkienė, Žvirdauskas, 2019) which fully encapsulates the Zipcar idea. If we increase the amount of Zipcars and Zipcar parking spaces on campus, we will see an increase in student mobility and a decrease in overspending through the parking space fees.
Works Cited
Martin, E. W., & Shaheen, S. A. (2011). Greenhouse gas emission impacts of carsharing in North America. IEEE Transactions on intelligent transportation systems, 12(4), 1074-1086.
Ostrom. (2009). General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems. Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 325(5939), 419–422. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1172133
Schwieterman, J. P., & Pelon, M. (2017). First Zipcar, Now Uber: Legal and Policy Issues Facing the Expanding” Shared Mobility” Sector in US Cities. Belmont L. Rev., 4, 109.
Šiuškaitė, D., Pilinkienė, V., & Žvirdauskas, D. (2019). The conceptualization of the sharing economy as a business model. Engineering Economics, 30(3), 373-381.