Quick car rental March 30, 2010
Posted by rainelai in business, crazy or cool ideas series, entrepreneurship.trackback
It’s been a long while since i blog and so much has happened in my life since then (that is a separate post all together)…
A friend in Canada shared about communauto which was an awesome idea which i think would be great in Singapore too. The existing incongruity of making cars cheap to purchase but costly to maintain is not gonna help free up the roads… and given the status quo/convenience of a car plus the super long queues of taxis everywhere plus the super squeezy train/bus rides… it’s tough to move pple towards not purchasing cars just so as to have a somewhat more convenient and comfortable ride home…
So here’s an idea on how it might work in Singapore’s context…
Instead of buying ur own car, join a plan/membership (preferably free) to pick up cars at convenient locations (near train stations) at ur ease as and when u need it for any number of hours required. This will be useful to pple with no regular demand of cars but may need it for one reason or the other.
For pple with cars but are merely parking them in offices/home most hours of the day, park for free at these locations and get free car wash/maintenance + possibly a fee in return for renting ur car to others in the hours u dun need it. Based on risk-return thresholds, leave it in the hands of a seasoned chauffeur or open to other locals/foreigners use.
For companies who require their salesmen/staff to commute during work hours, instead of having to incur motor vehicle expenses which are not tax deductible (for S-plate cars) or incur staff transport allowance, sign up for a corporate plan to attain access to a fleet of vehicles that can be deployed easily according to use.
We can hence cut down on no. of red plate cars that will require parking space (given that renting works out cheaper than owning a limited use car). We can also allow flexibility of car usage plus improve utility of cars before they are scraped. Reducing the total nos of cars in Singapore this way is definitely better than raising ERP rates consistently without addressing the problem of limited roads and parking lots.
Really you writing very well about car rentals.. Thanks..
The idea of car sharing/ car pool is not new. The devil is in the execution and there is big reward in show case how the details to be work out including insurance, informations on the availability and allocation of car. Looking forward to see someone put things in places.