Car Sharing is a model of car rental based on short term rent-als, usually in hour blocks. The principle is simple, you gain the advantages of a private car on a short term basis without the costs of running and owning a car.

How does it work?Most car share systems are run by privately owned organizations with customers signing up on a membership basis. a monthly or annual fee covers membership and insurance and gives you access to the service. The user can then book in advance either online or by phone, specifying where they wish to collect the car from, and how long they need it. bookings can be made for as little as an hour to several days. Once the user wants to use the car they transport themselves to a designated parking spot, where the car is located, they gain acces to the car via an RFID access/ membership card. The keys are located inside the car. The user can now use the car as they would any other private vehicle for their alloted time. Once finished the car is returned to its designated parking spot and locked with the RFID card.

S WTO

Car Share companys at present are’nt making as big an impact as could be possible. This is partly down to it being a relatively new business model, meaning the comapnies involved are still somewhat small. for instance in Melbourne, there are 3 car share companies with a combined fleet of jsut over 200 vehicles. the limited fleet also means a limited service area, with all three only servicing the inner most suburbs. It does definitely have its merrits and if grown could combat several issues, such as lowering emmisions, and congestion while offering a practical cost efficient service to the end user. At present this is still not practical for a large portion of the population as you will only be saving money if annually you drive under 15,000km, which if you drive to work everyday would only be practical if your trip is under 3km each way,

What is it?Car Share

* Cost effective * 1 car - many users * Use of small effecient vehicles

* Limited Fleet* Confined to council ap-proved parking spots* Car must be returned to ‘pod’*limited to CBD at pre-sent

* Expanding into other suburbs* Inreased awareness of environmental issues* Rising cost of running private vehicle*One way trips

* Rental companies * Rising fuel prices* Car must be returned to ‘pod’

PRT or Personal Rapid Transit is an automated public tranport system, running on a minuturised automated guideway system. It consists of small ‘pods’ which can usually acomodate 1-6 passengers running along rail like guideways. the pods are au-tonomous and unlike train systems can be directed to any of the stations on the network. It has been succesfully implemented in a small handfull of locations such as Heathrow airport, London.

How does it work?PRT’s run on preset guideways usually on rubber wheels, the user either before embarking at a terminal, or using an inter-face on board, will enter their end destination. The PRT will then autonomously navigate its network directly to the end location, bypassing any unnecisary stops en route. At present PRT’s have only been implemented in private facilities as a free service be-tween buildings, such as airport terminals.

S WTO

PRT’s are an innovative transport system that offer direct point to point transport. This makes them far more efficient than mass transport methods, which need to stop and start at each stop. They offer a service which could easily be implemented along side existing transport. However at present the cost of infrastructure is still quite high at approximately $10m per km of guideway. Having recently been implemeted in large establish-ments its viability could gain a renewed interest from city’s that have considered it but have not implemented to due to it being a large investment in new technology. Although the system al-lows non stop travel form pointto point without a large intricate network of guideways it still limits the user to set stations, as with a train or tram network. if the system could operate freely from its infrastructure it has the potential to be a highly suc-cesful system.

What is it?PRT

* Highly efficient due to no stopping * No need for driver * can be opperated at-more regular intervals than buses, trams*24/7 on demand acess

* Cost of infrastructure* Technology still mostly in testing phase * low operating speed

* Expansion of CBD transport networks * Yet to be implemented as public transport*guidway-less routes

* Technology with cheap-er infra structure* Legislation, often treat-ed as trains and made to conform to same stand-ards.

SARTRE or “SAfe Road TRains for the Environment is a project initiated by Volvo that is exploring and developing autonomous road trains for private vehicles.

How does it work?SARTRE, is a system devloped to realise autonomous road trains, these work by each car having a link to a ‘lead vehicle’ the lead vehicle is operated by a human, with upto 15 cars following in close proximity being controlled autonomously by the move-ments of the lead vehicle. The idea is best suited for freeway travel, with the user driving themself untill they come in contact with the road train. the lead vehicle will take controll of the us-ers vehicle and bring it into close proximity of the other vehicles. when the user needs to exit, the road train will safely move the car into its own lane where the user will take control once again. This is not dissimilar to adaptavice cruise control, a feature already found in several production vehicles, but goes a step further so that the user can completely let go of control of the vehicle once ‘onboard’ the road train or platoon.

S WTO

SARTRE is an intresting concept, by creating a road train, ef-ficiency is increased due to the slip stream effect, it also takes away human error from driving, which is the cause of most car accidents. its also a system that is being implemented even during testing to existing vehicles which could lead to it simply being an aftermarket product, such as a GPS navigation system. it does however have its pitfalls, mainly in that it revolves around the use of a lead vehicle. if one of these isn’t in your vicinity it deems the whole system worthless. legislation is also a major factor stopping many autonomous technologies, SARTRE although not perfect could be a good legislative stepping stone towards getting fully autonomous vehicles onto the road.

What is it?SARTRE

* Increased Fuel efficiency * Increased safety* Decreased congestion* Allows Driver to become a passenger*System could be retrofit-ted to existing vehicle

* Requires lead vehicle* only applicable to high-way driving

* Cargo road trains* removing need for lead vehicle* taking technologu be-yond freeway

* fully autonomous tech-nologies* Legislation

Simply put an autonomous car, is a vehicle that drives itself without the need for user imput. it is capable of sensing and navigating its environment with no human involvement other than inputting the destination.

How does it work?Autonomous vehicles use a combination of several advanced technologies to analyse and assess the environment in which they are in as well as to navigate, these range from GPS, loca-tion sensors, laser scanners and more. Put together these en-able the vehicle to take over all aspects of driving. test cars have been put in almost every imaginable circumstance and have outperformed humans. they are capable of better fuel efficiency, much faster collison avoidance and are far more acurate at judg-ing speeds and distances than most humans.

S WTO

Autonomous cars are a very hot topic in the automotive indus-try with most of the major manufacturers putting in etensive research with companys such as GM envisioning autonomous vehicles being marketed by 2020. at present the main obsta-cles to overcome are legislative with most countrys laws outlin-ing that the driver needs to be at the wheel at all times. This is however simply a stepping stone that once the vehicles become more main stream will be overcome. One huge advantage I see in this technology is that a vehicle could be put to use at almost all times of the day as it does not rely on its ‘owner’ to operate it. This opens it up as a service not just a vehicle that drives itself.

What is it?

Autonomous car

* No driver * Increased efficiency* Increased safety* Decreased congestion* Uses Existing infra-structure

* Removal of driving * Cost * Still in testing

* Completely new classes of vehicles * Insurance * Vehicles capable of moving themselves after use.* carshare

* Legislation* Public reception* Software / hardware failure