Is it safe to use car sharing in times of pandemic?

The car sharing or car sharing by its name in English, has suffered in its business model the consequences of the closure due to the pandemic.

But in addition, it has brought with it two phenomena that can affect mobility, such as the fear of leaving the home of many citizens due to the fear of contagion.

'Car sharing free floating'

Within the shared car, beyond the success of shared trips that Blablacar introduced by digitizing the old way of "hitchhiking", Madrid opted for a non-existent modality in Spain: free floating car sharing (free parking shared car).

A mode by which a car is rented through a mobile application that is parked on the street near where the user is.

Madrid also opted for this mobility with Manuela Carmena, while Ada Colau, in Barcelona, ​​did not.

Two ways of seeing this type of service from the same political current.

And so

landed in the capital at the end of 2015,

.

“We are the inventors of a business model that was welcomed by the public in Spain;

and also by the institutions.

And we are not only getting closer to making it profitable despite all the negative circumstances surrounding Covid, ”explains David Bartolomé, head of

in Madrid.

Car2Go is now called Share Now because

(owner of Mercedes-Benz) merged

its mobility businesses

with

.

It was the German company that kicked off this free parking shared car modality.

A year later,

, a subsidiary of

, now wholly owned by the French group and now called

.

In 2017,

would

, led by

and

: and in June 2018,

would

, a joint venture between

and

.

More than 2,800 vehicles between the four operators and with user records ranging from 175,000 to 300,000.

Covid free

However, the arrival of the pandemic caused the cessation of activity and, above all, the appearance of fear of traveling in shared use media.

David Bartolomé explains that “the Covid has meant a decrease in mobility of between 35-40%.

The use of public transport has dropped by 50% while the private car has fallen by 15-20% ».

Share Now "it

, every time the car is charged [Smart have only 100 km of real autonomy] and we also have specific crews that disinfect each car at least twice a day," explains Bartolomé.

In the case of Zity, it guarantees that its cars - 800 units of the Renault Zoe -

.

The key lies in a solution called Long Clean Surface, developed by

, a Ferrovial subsidiary, which is a kind of 'fixative' that adheres the disinfectant to all types of surfaces.

"More.

the more porous they are and, in fact, we have verified that the product is effective for up to eight weeks ", points out Javier Gómez, CEO of Zity, who remarks that this new disinfection process and its effectiveness

.

The cars are completely sprayed on the outside and inside with the solution, for whose tests a unit of the Renault Zoe was completely cut apart, proving that it was effective on all types of surfaces.

"In the last phase, even a strain of the virus was used to see that it was eliminated."

With all the vehicles treated with the new product,

will stop doing the daily disinfections that it has carried out since it resumed operations in May.

"Only the usual cleaning operations will follow."

For his part, from

, its operations director, Ignacio Román, explains that “we have an operations team that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Each time it is loaded, we proceed to

, focusing on those areas of greatest contact: steering wheel, lever, hand, nillares ... In addition, to ensure the sanitation of the fleet, we have itinerant patrols that do this same task in the street. And we left a safety kit inside the car, with hydroalcoholic gel and gloves.

Finally, from

, Carlos Blanco, its CEO, affirms that “we have exceeded

.

To do this, we deploy a team of cleaning personnel in the city that ensures the continuous sanitation of all vehicles and complements the advanced sanitation process implemented by MicroClean (with certificates validated by the WHO).

In addition, we provide users with hygienic products such as sterilizing wipes ”.

Trust

Less mobility has affected the use of car sharing.

“We are below the 10-12 uses per car that we had on Fridays;

but

, explains David Bartolomé, waiting for Share Now to introduce new vehicles, in addition to the Smart, in 2021 to expand the operator's radius of action, highly conditioned by the characteristics of the Smart fortwo.

However, "people trust more in the security of the system and the users we already have continue to trust us."

Free2Move explains that they have developed a platform with new services and “we have launched our car rental service from 1 day to 1 month;

we have introduced a new model of car to the car sharing fleet, the

».

A similar service began to be offered by Wibble after the lockdown.

"We designed in collaboration with our users, a new service within our application, which allows

, says Carlos Blanco.

For its part,

which has expanded its coverage areas to Alcobendas and Pozuelo de Alarcón, foresees that

, according to Javier Gómez.

Cost effectiveness

Of course,

.

“Before Covid-19, we were breaking records and our goal was to break even this year.

Now the forecast is to reach it in 2021 "says Gómez. Currently, it has recovered 60% of the business volume it had before the pandemic, although it slowed down in October with the second wave.

While David Bartolomé, gives the key to the business.

“It can be profitable, it depends on the uses, on how you operate it, on the competition;

how cars are rearranged;

whether or not there are cars when you open the app ».

For their part, Free2Moove and Wibble are committed to improving and expanding the service to achieve profitability without specifying a specific date.

New models

Once Covid-19 is over, operators will consider continuing to expand the business.

Both in coverage of performance areas and in models.

has combustion models and other brands in other countries. "We have three-day rental services in Berlin, in addition to having combustion vehicles in various European cities such as the Mercedes-Benz A-Class or the BMW Series 1 and even with a Fiat 500X, "says David Bartolomé.

Free2Moove

has just introduced the

which is a leap in quality

to the previous Citroën C-Zero.

In addition, it is the only one that introduces an electric van for transport in this type of mobility.

Zity

contemplates the introduction of vehicle connectivity improvements and it is also considering adding a second model to the fleet: specifically the

, also 100% electric, although with a more limited range (about 225 km) than the Zoe.

On the other hand, Gómez does not finish seeing that there is business resorting to models such as the Renault Twizy or the most recent

that his competitor is beginning to move in Paris.

"They have their niche in the market, but it is not an alternative that we shuffle because I think their limitations are greater than the opportunities they offer."

For example, the model of the Grupo PSA brand barely has 70 kilometers of autonomy and cannot exceed 45 km / h, which allows it to be used by teenagers and people without a license.

But it makes very little recommendable and safe to circulate on roads such as the M-30, where you would always have to go at maximum speed (the law does not allow driving below the generic limit of the road, which in this case is 90 km / h).

For its part,

continues its commitment to the

and, for the moment, does not plan to introduce the pure electric version of the Niro in this service.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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