Car-share provider car2go is scaling back Metro Vancouver operations starting February 1, the company announced January 19.
Reductions include chopping service in Richmond, except for three areas: Pacific Gateway Hotel, Kwantelen University's Richmond campus and on Mitchell Island at Badminton Vancouver and 6Pack Beach. Car2go will also operate in a smaller footprint in North Vancouver.
The car-share company operates in what it calls home areas, where members can leave vehicles in convenient parking spots. Home areas will continue to include the downtown peninsula as well as parts of North Vancouver but will otherwise be phased out in Richmond.
Cars in Richmond had been sitting idle for more than 13 hours a day, the company said in a statement.
“This is a stark contrast to the vehicles in its Vancouver home area, which move frequently, ensuring that our vehicles are in constant circulation, rather than occupying limited parking spaces,” the company noted.
“This change will allow us to concentrate the vehicles within the Vancouver home area for a more robust car2go network, allowing members to find a vehicle more easily when they need to get from Point A to Point B.”
The company expanded to Richmond in December 2014, when it had 750 vehicles, and has since increased its Metro Vancouver presence to 1,275 vehicles, making it the largest fleet in the world, car2go spokeswoman Dacyl Armendariz told BIV in a January 19 email.
"We will not be reducing the number of vehicles," she said.
Car2go has been following a strategy of targeting air travellers. It has vehicles at airports in five of the 14 metro areas in which it operates, the company told Business in Vancouver last year.
It has five designated parking spots at the Pacific Gateway Hotel on Sea Island – a location that means that its drivers can then take a free shuttle bus to the airport.
Competition in the local car-share niche has shifted into overdrive, particularly at Vancouver International Airport (YVR).
In 2014, car2go competed with Zipcar and Modo. British Columbia Automobile Association (BCAA) then launched Evo in March 2015.
Most of Evo’s vehicles are in downtown Vancouver but it has three designated parking spaces where members can leave cars at the Park’N Fly outlet on Sea Island, close to YVR. Its drivers then take a free shuttle bus to the airport.
Three months after Evo’s launch, Zipcar launched two designated parking spots at the Avis rental car lot at the lower level of YVR’s main parkade.
The only one of the four car-share companies that operate in Metro Vancouver that does not have designated parking spots near YVR is Modo.
Modo’s business development manager, Sylvain Celaire told BIV last year that Modo is not interested in having designated parking spaces near YVR because most of its 13,000 members live in Metro Vancouver and, unlike Evo and car2go, its members must pick up and drop off a car in the same location. So, one-way trips on Modo are not possible.
Zipcar similarly does not allow one-way trips but it has so many members in other cities that it makes sense for it to be at YVR, its Vancouver general manager Mark Pribula told BIV last year.
