Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
Zipcars are now on campus. These cars, which, as of late last week had less than 24 miles on their speedometers, are available for use by students and faculty. The University of Maine has two Zipcars, a Toyota Prius and a Mazda 3. These cars are available for rent.
Registrants can sign the car of their choice out for any available time slots for $7 per hour or $55 per day. Reservations can be canceled an hour before they are scheduled to start. Reservations can be made online or through the phone by calling 1-866-4ZIPCAR. The cars can be signed out for as little as one hour and as long as four days. Drivers can use the car for 180 miles per day; there is a charge of 35 cents for each additional mile.
To sign up for the program, students and faculty must go online at Zipcar.com. When they do this they will have to pay a $35 fee which will be credited to their account in driving hours. Once the online process is complete, Zipcar sends the registrant a “zipcard” which is used to unlock the car.
When somebody signs out a zipcar, the Zipcard sends a signal to the car which allows the car to be used. The keys can be left in the car at all times because the engine will not start without the card.
One reason these cars were brought to UMaine was because of the lack of parking. “Every car that they have, statistically, brought into a city or on a college campus, takes 19 cars off the road. Theoretically, both of these cars could take 40 cars off the road,” Derek Mitchell, the vice president of student entertainment, said.
Zipcar takes care of all vehicle costs including gas, car insurance and maintenance. Mitchell admitted that “It has its risks,” and “when you’re in that car you are responsible for it.”
“When it comes up to 50,000 [miles] they are taken out of rotation. Basically they stay within the manufacture’s warrantee for their life as Zipcars. Anything that goes wrong with them is automatically covered in dealer warrantees,” Mitchell said.
All profits go to Zipcar. “The university is not seeing anything out of it; they are not putting anything into it either,” Mitchell said. There is a potential for profit sharing in the future if the program becomes popular.
Zipcar makes $1,500 per month per car. If this money is not generated through the rental fees, Student Government, who is the sponsor for the Zipcars, is responsible for paying it. In case this happens, $5000 has been set aside. If Zipcar is causing Student Government to lose money, they can send the cars back with one month’s notice.
Rob Dalton, the business development manager for Zipcar, said, “It takes a little bit while for the program to catch on to the student body as well as to the faculty and staff, but it has been extremely positive to all universities.”
Mitchell said that Zipcars are fun and meant to be environmentally friendly. He said that if the program generates enough interest, the new cars they bring to campus could be even more fun to drive. Zipcar offers a variety of cars for colleges to choose from which include pick-up trucks along with Ford Mustangs.
Bates College recently implemented the program with two Toyota Priuses. “We’ve only had them for a little while but it is going really well,” Julie Rosenbach, the environmental coordinator at the school, said. There are no numerical figures to determine how often the cars are being used at Bates, but Rosenbach said that the student interest is high.
An anonymous source from parking services on campus said, “There are only two cars so I can’t see that it will make too big an impact. Even if someone has one every day then that would be two less people traveling on the [BAT] bus so I don’t believe that it will make a huge impact.”
Users must be 18, have a driver’s license, have no more than two violations and no major violations in the past three years. They also must not have had any alcohol related violations in the past seven years.
