BART, Hertz to Launch First Station Car Rental Service

27 September 1999

BART, Hertz to Launch First Station Car Rental Service

    OAKLAND, Calif.--Sept. 24, 1999--The "shared-car" concept of automobile non-ownership expanded yesterday (Thursday, Sept. 23) when the BART Board of Directors authorized what is believed to be the world's first demonstration of a "station car rental service" with a major rental car company.
    The premium-service project with Hertz will take place at the Fremont BART Station with possible expansion to the Bay Fair, Colma and Concord stations in the future. A station car is a car that is shared by several users each day for more convenient, less expensive access between a transit station, homes and work.
    Earlier this year BART worked with the University of California at Davis and American Honda to launch the shared-car "CarLink" demonstration project at the BART Dublin/Pleasanton Station using Honda Civic GX sedan's fueled by compressed natural gas. The Hertz cars will be gasoline-powered.
    "We consider station cars to be an important new service that holds multiple benefits for BART and its customers," said BART General Manager Thomas E. Margro, "specifically, by serving more than one customer per parking space and by making it possible for reverse commuters to get from suburban stations to suburban work sites." Margro is also the chair of the American Public Transit Association's Technical Forums on Station Cars.
    The Hertz monthly subscriber rental service will take up space currently striped to accommodate 21 cars. "Stacked" (bumper-to-bumper) parking by Hertz will also allow more cars to serve more subscribers as the program grows. Hertz expects to double the number of BART customers served by each parking space, half driving from home to the station and the other half driving the same cars from the station to work.
    Andrea Church, Manager of Hertz's Fleet Operations for the North Pacific Area, told BART's Board of Directors that "Hertz looks forward to working with BART to develop this new transportation concept and to offer commuter solutions for growing suburban employment sites."
    A primary feature of station cars is that they are not dedicated to individual drivers. The station car fleet provided by Hertz will be shared by a pool of subscribers, allowing home-to-station commuters and station-to-work commuters to use the same cars and thus reduce parking demand at the station.
    Hertz plans to charge "home end users" and the "corporate work site users" $400 a month for premium service that includes"


-- guaranteed parking near the station entrance
-- a Hertz attendant at the station
-- all cleaning, servicing and maintenance of the car
-- gasoline refueling for up to 1,000 miles a month

The California Automobile Association estimates that the average family automobile costs more than $500 per month to own, fuel and maintain. Station car service is less expensive and eliminates the refueling and maintenance hassles associated with owning a car.
BART has been developing the station car concept for several years. Last year it completed a three-year demonstration program using electric cars.