Getaround, along with a spate of competitors including RelayRides in San Francisco and Boston, SprideShare in San Francisco, WhipCar in the UK, and CityzenCar in France, fits into the larger trend of using the web to help people share “stuff.”

How to Get Around

Here’s how it’s supposed to work: To sign up as a driver in Getaround’s Beta launch, you enter some basic information on Getaround.com, including date of birth, gender, zip code, and whether you know how to drive a stick shift. To complete the signup, you log in to Getaround using your Facebook account, granting it access to some of your Facebook data. Before you can rent a car, Getaround also checks your driving record.

For the car owner, Getaround seeks to provide “a lot of flexibility and control” over who can rent the vehicle and how. “You can choose to share with one or two people, or the whole neighborhood,” said Jessica Scorpio, co-founder and business development chief for Getaround. “We’re the marketplace to make it happen.”

The owner of a Tesla Roadster Sport in the program, for example, only considers requests from drivers who are at least 30 years old, and she requires a minimum 2-hour rental period (at $25 per hour). Drivers can “bundle” requests for up to five cars for a given rental period, and then the car owner who responds first wins the gig. Owners set the rental rate, and Getaround takes a 30 percent cut of each transaction.

Requiring users to have a Facebook profile helps Getaround verify identity, said Scorpio, and also encourages good behavior. “If drivers know you have access to their real Facebook profile,” she said, “they’ll be more cautious.” Down the road, Getaround plans to integrate more closely with Facebook, enabling users to rent their vehicle only to existing network connections, for example.

Once a driver and owner have agreed to a rental, Getaround generates an email confirmation that will allow the driver to locate, honk, unlock the car using a smart phone, thanks to the “Carkit” device that owners can have installed on their vehicle for $200. Currently Getaround offers an app for the iPhone and it plans to release an Android app in the near future, but the browser on a smart phone can also do the job, according to Scorpio. Car owners who prefer to meet the renter and hand over keys in person can skip or delay the hardware installation.

Getaround accepts only vehicles from the 2000 model year or later with no more than 100,000 miles on the odometer, and the company hopes to recruit a large number of “green vehicles,” including more all-electric models. Scorpio said Getaround currently has 60 cars active throughout California, mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego, where the University of California has provided funding for a small-scale trial project. At least 40 additional vehicles are moving through Getaround’s approval process. In all, Scorpio said “a few thousand” people have signed up to use Getaround.

While the 12-person company is focusing most of its efforts on proving its model in San Francisco, said Scorpio, Getaround can support peer-to-peer car sharing anywhere in California. Next year the ambitious startup hopes to expand across the country, and within five years it aims to go global.

Peer to Peer Car Sharing

It’s not mere coincidence that distributed car sharing services are sprouting up in California. In September legislation called AB 1871 passed in the state that paves the way for distributed or “peer-to-peer” car sharing programs. The legislation established rules for when a vehicle owner’s insurance policy stops applying, and when a commercial policy held by a service provider like Getaround kicks in.

Getaround “did as much as we could” to encourage passage of AB 1871, said Scorpio. But the company’s origins trace back to a 2009 group project at Singularity University’s 10-week, $25,000 summer program in Mountain View, Calif. Created by futurist Ray Kurzweil and X Prize chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, Singularity University’s courses and programs focus on “exponentially growing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges.”

The group’s concept for an iPhone app that facilitates “peer-to-peer” car-sharing won the “best money making app” category in a hackathon competition at Yahoo headquarters in July 2009. By September three of the team members — Scorpio, plus Sam Zaid and Director of Engineering Elliot Kroo — had officially founded the startup now known as Getaround.

Given its Silicon Valley roots, it’s no surprise that Getaround considers itself a technology company. But at the end of the day, Getaround’s success and growth will depend as much, if not more, on the company’s handling of low-tech issues like auto insurance, legislation and customer service. Streamlining the hardware aspect will be crucial for the company to achieve its vision of a global footprint.

As Spride Share co-founder Sunil Paul put it in an interview, Spride’s distributed car-sharing platform (which unlike Getaround, requires a key fob for entry) offers an example of a greentech venture that’s enabled by technology, yet fundamentally is not a technology play. “This is not going to be the whiz bang app, or the whiz bang anything,” he said. Rather, Spride’s success will hinge on catching policies up with an opportunity and capitalizing on what Paul sees as a general trend toward cars in “reasonably dense settings” becoming a shared resource.

Mobile Phone Tech As Enabler

During a rental session, Getaround tracks location data via users’ smart phones as well as the so-called Carkit installed on each vehicle. The company allows vehicle owners to set when and where other Getaround users can view the location of their car when it’s parked. And according to the company’s privacy terms, the vehicle owners also “may be able to see the location” of their car during the rental period. “Other than that,” says Getaround, “other users will not be able to see your movements….unless you choose to enable ride-sharing features.”

Might Getaround partner at some point with a smartphone-based ride-share service, such as Zimride, Carticipate, Avego or Daimler’s Car2gether? According to Scorpio, the company is interested in partnering with car sharing companies, municipal transportation departments, universities, and “P2P companies,” which she described as “anything that helps you share assets.”

According to Scorpio, Getaround does not actively monitor driving information in real time. Rather, she said the company is more interested in patterns (for example, if you speed during every rental session) and being able to track down a stolen vehicle. “We want to know if it’s going 100 miles an hour toward Mexico,” she explained.

Getaround has built a device called a Carkit that allows this data collection, and also makes keyless entry using the company’s iPhone app possible. The device, according to Scorpio, is “as non-invasive as it can get,” plugging in “very easily” to a car’s ODB-II (on-board diagnostics) port. Currently Getaround picks up vehicles from new members and brings them to professional mechanics for the Carkit installation. This is a clunky, costly step for a startup trying to build a web-based global service, so Getaround is working to simplify the process and hardware.

Scorpio expects 2011 to be a big year for the company. Getaround has raised seed funding from Redpoint Ventures and Powerset founder Barney Pell. The startup not hurting for cash at the moment, said Scorpio, but it plans to seek Series A financing this year.

For more research on the intersection of green and IT check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• Car Data As the Next Platform for Innovation
• Mobility on Demand Takes Aim at Transit Networks’ “Last Mile”
• Location-Based Services: From Mobile to Mobility

Widespread access to so-called “mobility as a service,” is a crucial piece of this greener transportation puzzle, making it easier for us to go car-free more frequently. Over the course of 2010, a rich ecosystem of services, startups and innovations began to take shape.

As envisioned by MIT researchers, a fully fleshed-out Mobility on Demand system would involve a comprehensive network of services in which city residents could rent an electric car, scooter or bicycle when and where they need it in order to bridge the “last mile” gap between public transit stations and a final destination.

The effects of sharing bikes and vehicles could extend well beyond the transportation sector. According to a report out this fall from research firm Latitude, car-sharing is kindof like a gateway drug for the growing trend of using the web to help people share physical things. People who try out car-sharing services are more likely to join in other web-based sharing services, and folks who share vehicles share significantly more than non-car-sharers across a range of categories, from living space to food to media. Here’s seven steps taken this year toward shared transportation.

Bike Sharing Boom: Bike sharing networks, in which city residents or tourists can rent bicycles by the hour or day, have been around for years. Paris, with the Velib program it launched back in 2007, helped popularize the idea, but it wasn’t until this year that bike sharing — often enabled by mobile access to the web and GPS — began to gain momentum stateside. Programs launched in Denver, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and other metro areas.

New York City is up next, as the Big Apple’s transportation department requested proposals last month to set up a high-tech system for borrowing or renting bikes for short trips, starting around the spring of 2012. Across the pond, London launched a program called Barclays Cycle Hire in July and by November it was set for expansion, having already logged more than 1.5 million journeys and signed up over 100,000 users.

Green Light for AB 1871: In September legislation called AB 1871 passed in California that paves the way for distributed or “peer-to-peer” car sharing programs, which let car owners rent out their personal vehicles. The legislation establishes rules (going into effect January 1, 2011) for when a vehicle owner’s insurance policy stops applying, and when a commercial policy held by a service provider like RelayRides or Spride Share would kick in.

Distributed Car Sharing Revs Up: Following passage of AB 1871, startups including Spride Share, RelayRides and Get Around (which started as a team project at Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity University in Mountain View) have launched services to facilitate distributed car sharing. Big-name investors have put some skin in the game, too. Having launched in the Boston area in the fall, RelayRides expanded to San Francisco this month, and announced its first round of investment from Google Ventures and August Capital.

Zipcar Guns for IPO: The car sharing market fielded its first IPO registrant this year, with Zipcar filing in June to raise up to $75 million in a public offering. Plans for proceeds from the offering include, among other things, repaying more than $40 million in debt, developing new services, expanding its fleet and paying some $5 million to shareholders in the recently acquired Streetcar. Then again, the company raised a $21 million Series G financing round earlier this month, which could mean the IPO is on the rocks.

Streetcar Acquisition: In its latest bid to expand across Europe, car sharing heavyweight Zipcar bought London-based car-sharing firm Streetcar this spring in a deal valued at about $62 million. Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith called the deal (which came on the heels of an investment in Spanish car-sharing startup Avancar late last year) a key step toward making the company a “truly global” car-sharing network.

UK antitrust authorities halted integration of the two companies while they looked into whether “the transaction may result in a substantial lessening of competition in any relevant market in the United Kingdom,” but ultimately approved the transaction this week.

Big Auto Starts Sharing: With the launch of a pilot project that will let customers rent any current BMW model by the hour from the company’s event center in Munich, BMW Group broke into car sharing this fall. It wasn’t the only example of a big auto company moving into Zipcar’s turf in 2010. Daimler expanded its two-way city car sharing program Car2Go (pick up a Smart Fortwo in the Car2Go fleet, drop it off at any open parking spot in the program area).

Daimler also launched the Twitter of ridesharing, Car2Gether, which identifies and links passengers and drivers with empty seats that are nearby and heading in the same direction. What’s a German car company doing getting into social networking and tech-enabled carpooling? Trying to figure out new business models for an era of accelerating urbanization, declining car ownership and expanding access to the mobile web.

Hertz Snaps Up Flexicar: In October, rental car giant Hertz announced an agreement to acquire Australia’s largest car sharing provider, Flexicar. Already making inroads with car sharing in Berlin, London, Madrid, New York and Paris, Hertz added Melbourne and Sydney to its Connect by Hertz footprint with this deal. The companies planned to integrate Flexicar’s 2,500 members into Connect by Hertz shortly after closing the deal (expected this month).

For more research on the intersection of green and IT check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

• Car Data As the Next Platform for Innovation
• Mobility on Demand Takes Aim at Transit Networks’ “Last Mile”
• Location-Based Services: From Mobile to Mobility

Founded in 2009, RelayRides began offering what founder and CEO Shelby Clark calls “neighbor to neighbor” car sharing in the Boston area in September. The concept is like “cloud computing for cars,” as Sunil Paul, CEO of competitor Spride Share, has put it to us. With cloud computing, users can share computing infrastructure over the Internet, accessing software, data and other resources on demand. With transportation and car sharing, the idea is to provide mobility as a service. At a basic level, rather than buying a car, you could buy access to a car whenever you need it.

Piggybacking on the idea of popular car sharing services like Zipcar, RelayRides “makes it easier to live without a car,” said Clark, and can lead to “stronger communities.” Collecting feedback from users in Boston, RelayRides has learned that people on both sides of the car share equation — vehicle lenders and borrowers — “feel like they’re helping each other,” either by providing some extra income through the rental fee or by providing wheels when they’re needed. Car owners set their own hourly rate and get 65 percent of the fee, while RelayRides takes a 15 percent cut. The remaining 20 percent goes toward insurance.

RelayRides is still solidifying its deal with Google Ventures and August Capital, and the startup tells us that the amount of investment should be disclosed in the next few days. RelayRides has previously raised $500,000 in angel investment, and Clark said it has already received some funds from Google Ventures. He declined to comment on questions about profitability.

Starting on Tuesday, “a handful of vehicles” will be available in the San Francisco fleet. Car owners in San Francisco can enroll on the company’s website, prompting a call from RelayRides to answer any questions. From there, the car owner can schedule installation of some hardware, which enables communication with RelayRides’ servers and controls access, so only a user with a current reservation can unlock and start the vehicle.

Vehicles enrolled in the Boston RelayRides fleet have a keypad interface that lets drivers extend a reservation, but Clark said the San Francisco fleet will feature an upgraded, more streamlined system without the in-vehicle interface.

Cutting the installation time to 1 hour, from 3-4 hours with the older system, the hardware changes could be a smart cost-cutting move for the company if it’s looking to expand to more markets. According to Clark, the company aims to serve not only cities but also areas with lower population densities — the suburbs and “urban fringe” — where traditional car sharing providers can’t profitably operate. Without the cost of owning and managing its own vehicle fleet, said Clark, RelayRides can afford to have more down time, or lower utilization rates for each vehicle.

For security, a RelayRides vehicle’s ignition will be immobilized except for access by the car owner or an authorized borrower. General vehicle locations can be viewed without a reservation, but users only find out the exact address via text message once the rental is finalized. RelayRides also emails the user a map at that point marking the vehicle location (each enrolled vehicle is outfitted with a GPS system for finding the vehicle and tracking mileage ). As Clark put it, since the keys are kept in the car and its location is being advertised, it would be “asking to be stolen” without these precautions.

Also on Tuesday, RelayRides will begin screening drivers who sign up on the company’s website (the company checks for a history of violations or tickets). Once approved for membership, drivers can reserve vehicles through RelayRides’ website and unlock a car during their time slot with a smart card. Next month, users will also be able to register San Francisco’s Clipper transit pass for this purpose, with RelayRides reading a digital signature on the card and assigning it to a particular user, said Clark.

For companies like RelayRides and Spride Share, insurance is one of the biggest bugaboos. Until recently, insurance regulations in California and other states allowed insurance companies to void a vehicle owner’s insurance policy if the car was rented out to others.

In September, however, legislation called AB 1871 passed in California that establishes rules for when a vehicle owner’s insurance policy stops applying, and when a commercial policy held by a service provider like RelayRides would kick in. RelayRides holds a $1 million supplemental insurance policy that goes into effect during each reservation period.

Clark believes the legislation “forced a lot of people to take a position on personal car sharing.” By clearing up a “gray area” for this type of business model, he said, the legislation has helped ease RelayRides entry into California. (San Francisco also garnered the most votes in a poll on RelayRides’ website asking where the company should expand next.)

Spride Share waited for AB 1871 to go on the books before launching its pilot program with local car sharing provider City CarShare. Asked whether RelayRides considered pursuing a similar partnership for its West Coast launch, Clark commented that Spride “cemented a relationship with City Car Share early on.” That left only Zipcar as a potential partner, he said, and RelayRides did not consider linking up with the car sharing heavyweight.

For more research on the intersection of green and IT check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

Car Data As the Next Platform for Innovation

Mobility on Demand Takes Aim at Transit Networks’ “Last Mile”

Location-Based Services: From Mobile to Mobility

BMW on Demand is is set to run for a year, expanding in a second phase to additional locations in Munich, according to a release from the company. And the Wall Street Journal reports today that if the program is successful, BMW plans to eventually open rental sites in other European cities. Reservations can be made over the phone, in person or online, and hourly fees will vary based on model and time of day.

BMW vs. Zipcar

With its luxury brand, BMW is targeting a narrower slice of the short-term rental market than Zipcar, which provides models ranging from the Kia Soul to the Audi A3 to the Ford Escape, and markets its service, in part, as a money-saver. Like Zipcar, BMW says it will cover insurance, cleaning and servicing costs. In a key difference between BMW on Demand and many car sharing providers (Zipcar as well as smaller, regional organizations), however, BMW will have users pay for fuel on top of their rental fee. Whereas Zipcar users are charged for the full reservation period regardless of an early return, BMW on Demand says users will only be charged for the actual use period. And of course while Zipcar, which has never turned a profit, aims to build a business out of car sharing (and providing technology to fleet operators), BMW on Demand could be worthwhile for the German automaker if it helps generate interest and good will for BMW among prospective car buyers.

Surely there’s room for multiple players in car sharing and short-term rentals. That said, BMW’s entry into this market is a move that Zipcar can’t ignore. It’s none other than BMW’s Mini Cooper that is the most frequently requested model in Zipcar’s fleet, Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith said in a panel discussion earlier this year. And the high end in general is an valuable segment for Zipcar, serving drivers who may not be able to afford (or perhaps justify to a spouse) ownership of a luxury model, but will pay an extra few bucks per hour to get a swankier, sportier ride once in a while.

That’s precisely the customer BMW has in mind with this new service. According to the Wall Street Journal, BMW expects “many potential customers would choose models they perhaps couldn’t purchase outright—such as its M6 sports coupe, which has a U.S. starting price of $102,350—and rent them for special occasions.”

Automakers on the Move

BMW isn’t the only automaker moving into Zipcar’s turf. Daimler has launched a car sharing service called car2go, as well as car2gether, which is like the Twitter of rides sharing with a live feed of ride requests and offers. Peugeot, meanwhile, launched a program (“Mu by Peugeot”) in Europe last year for renting vehicles, bicycles, accessories like roof boxes, and other “mobility services.”

Automakers have compelling reasons to consider shifting at least part of their business to provide mobility as more of a service, including rising vehicle ownership costs, a global population that’s increasingly urban, and declining vehicle ownership among younger drivers. According to forecasts from research firm Frost & Sullivan, the number of drivers using car-sharing networks increased 117 percent between 2007 and 2009 in North America. Within five years, the firm expects to see 4.4 million people in North America and 5.5 million people in Europe sign up for car-sharing programs, more than tripling membership from 2009.

Sizing Up the Competition

Despite automakers like BMW experimenting with hourly car rentals and a crop of startups like Spride Share, RelayRides and WhipCar working to let consumers share their own cars, Zipcar considers traditional car rental companies like U-Haul, Enterprise and Hertz, which have recently jumped into the car sharing game, to be its main competition in North America. Rental car companies, Zipcar acknowledged in its S-1 filing in June, have better-known brands and heftier “financial, technical and marketing resources,” which could allow them to undercut Zipcar on cost.

For Zipcar, a key competitive strength is its current reach (it’s the world’s largest car sharing network, with some 7,000 vehicles and about 400,000 members) and a platform designed from the get-go to scale. Whereas some other car sharing providers have outfitted their vehicles with more hardware, such as hands-free phones and keypads for entering access codes, Zipcar developed a streamlined, largely automated system (including a “black box” device that receives data over AT&T’s wireless network and a platform for managing reservations, vehicles and payments in multiple currencies).

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Innovation?

Frost & Sullivan has forecast that by 2016, revenue from car sharing services could reach up to $3.3 billion in North America and €2.6 billion (about $3.2 billion) in Europe, up from up from $253 million and €220 million ($269.7 billion) in 2009, respectively. Zipcar shared a slightly less optimistic outlook in its S-1 filing, noting that it expects “the Frost & Sullivan market forecasts are more likely achievable by 2020.”

Those figures are helping to attract innovators from all quarters: car rental companies, universities, software startups, app developers and — as BMW on Demand illustrates — automakers. Some of these pilot projects and startups will, in all likelihood, eventually fold. But in these early days, we’re seeing an increasingly rich ecosystem of mobility service providers, which can only be a boon for the creation of alternative transportation options. As a bonus, adoption of car sharing services could also provide a jump-start for business models that use the web to share physical things.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Ryan Holst.

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New York-based Zeitbyte, which provides video production and distribution services for many live events, will be webcasting 88 of the shows from Lincoln Center, as well as 18 shows from Milk Studios. Those videos are being made available through three different websites — atlincolncenter.com, milkmade.com and firstcomesfashion.com — and are also accessible through iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Android mobile devices. (For a detailed schedule of shows being streamed live, see “Where to Watch New York Fashion Week Online.”)

Zeitbyte CEO Gary Kahn says the startup has nine full-time employees and typically does one or two events a week, but can scale up with contract workers when needed. New York Fashion Week represents its biggest week of the year, and Kahn says Zeitbyte will have four different shows happening at once at some points. The company is handling all encoding, streaming, reporting and analytics, and has built custom players for the Lincoln Center and Milk Studios sites.

While Zeitbyte specializes in video production services, the company has built its content management system (CMS) to allow customers to webcast their own events and just use the CMS for management and distribution if they want to.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: Benchmarking Digital Delivery (subscription required)

Today’s filing comes on the heels of Zipcar arranging to borrow $70 million under a one-year credit facility for the purchase of new cars for its U.S. fleet (through Zipcar Vehicle Financing, a wholly owned subsidiary). The IPO filing also comes about six weeks after Zipcar acquired its largest competitor in the UK (a car sharing provider called Streetcar), and more than two years after Zipcar absorbed its largest U.S. competitor: Seattle-based Flexcar, owned by AOL Co-founder Steve Case.

Zipcar (one of our 10 Greentech IPO Picks) has discussed the goal of going public since early 2008, and comments from CEO Scott Griffith last summer hinted at Zipcar hoping for an IPO sometime in 2010. The company told us in April 2009 that it expected to “cross over into profitability this year.” According to today’s filing, however, Zipcar has seen net losses each year since its inception and it expects to lose money again in 2010 (we’ll report more details from the S-1 later today).

Anticipating significant expenses to arise as part of its expansion effort (Zipcar currently operates in only 13 of more than 100 global metro areas and university campuses where it hopes to set up car sharing), the company says it does not know if its losses will continue in “2011 and beyond.” Last year, Zipcar says its revenues reached $131.2 million, up from just $13.7 million in 2005.

Zipcar’s plans for the proceeds from the offering include, among other things, repaying more than $40 million in debt, developing new services, expanding its fleet and paying some $5 million to shareholders in the recently acquired Streetcar.

Zipcar developed its fleet technology with a plan to scale it. The company’s vehicles carry some essential hardware — notably a “black box” device (a custom circuit board, processor and modem) fitted to a vehicle wind shield that allows users to unlock the car they’ve reserved. The device receives data over AT&T’s wireless network and when a user reserves a car (online or over the phone), it authorizes their card for a particular vehicle. Those devices also allow Zipcar — and now fleet managers, through Zipcar’s new FastFleet program — to remotely monitor vehicles.

Zipcar stands as the heavyweight in a growing market. According to forecasts from research firm Frost & Sullivan, the number of drivers using car-sharing networks increased 117 percent between 2007 and 2009 in North America. Within five years, the firm expects to see 4.4 million people in North America and 5.5 million people in Europe (where Zipcar hopes to expand  its presence beyond London) sign up for car-sharing programs, more than tripling membership from 2009.

The “green” aspect of a car sharing service like Zipcar stems from their potential to serve as an early testing ground for cleaner vehicles, and their capacity to help reduce vehicle ownership. “Lots of people sell or don’t buy cars as a result of our business,” Griffith said in a panel earlier this year. “Or we become their second car, their fractional second car,” since users only pay to “own” a Zipcar vehicle for a fraction of the time they’d pay to buy or lease a personal vehicle. In addition, Frost & Sullivan anticipates plug-in vehicles will make up one in every five new vehicle purchases for car-share fleets by 2016.

Photo courtesy of Zipcar

For more research on car sharing networks check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

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It remains to be seen which, if any, of these very early stage companies will find a significant user base and successfully navigate the maze of insurance coverage for personal vehicles offered up for rental. Here’s a snapshot of the next-generation of car sharing innovators:

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Streetcar founders Andrew Valentine (left) and Brett Akker (right) with Zipcar CEO and Chairman Scott Griffith (center).

Zipcar isn’t the oldest car sharing network, but it is the world’s largest and it aims to eventually span across the globe — partly by acquiring competitors. In Zipcar’s latest move, on Wednesday it announced that it’s acquired the UK’s largest car sharing provider, Streetcar, in a $50 million deal. But now as Zipcar works to integrate Streetcar’s network — and potentially other networks down the road — it will face some important questions about how to bridge technology gaps between different car sharing models, and how to economically scale.

The grand vision behind Zipcar’s global expansion is for a subscriber who lives near the company’s Cambridge, Mass. headquarters, for example, to rent a car in a Barcelona or London Zipcar fleet just as easily as in their home network. That would require a seamless user experience, and will need some heavy lifting behind the scenes. Incorporating new networks like Streetcar’s will force Zipcar to decide which features and services to drop (at the risk of alienating existing users), and which ones to try and adopt or maintain.

Keeping in mind ZipCar’s goals of global domination, profitability in 2010 and an eventual IPO, the strategy comes down to rapidly expanding its fleet and user base at the lowest cost. “We don’t want to go hang a lot of new hardware on the car,” Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith explained to us in an interview last summer.

In fact the ideal vehicle for car sharing, Griffith said, would be modeled after smart phones, with an open platform that would allow Zipcar to roll new cars into its fleet with little more than a software download. Given that ideal, Zipcar seems likely to opt for streamlining its acquisitions and shaving off some of their extra gadgets and services.

Zipcar’s Tech

Zipcar developed its fleet technology with a plan to scale it. The company’s vehicles carry some essential hardware — notably a “black box” device (a custom circuit board, processor and modem) fitted to a vehicle wind shield that allows users to unlock the car they’ve reserved. The device receives data over AT&T’s wireless network and when a user reserves a car (online or over the phone), it authorizes their card for a particular vehicle. Those devices also allow Zipcar — and now fleet managers, through Zipcar’s new FastFleet program — to remotely monitor vehicles.

Streetcar runs on a different system. Like Zipcar, it lets users unlock their reserved vehicle with the swipe of a card over the windshield, or by way of an iPhone app. But Streetcar has also taken the step of equipping its vehicles with a hands-free phone for calling the company’s service center, and made it so calls to a driver’s incoming mobile phone can be diverted to the car. Streetcar also requires users to enter their PIN on a handheld terminal or on a keypad in the dash before they can start the car.

A Zipcar spokesperson today told us the company has not decided whether it will continue the hands-free phone service for the Streetcar fleet. But if Zipcar remains focused on keeping costs low as it scales, our guess is that Zipcar will phase this out of the UK fleet. It may not be worth it to alter Streetcar’s existing fleet, but as new cars roll out we’d expect them to use Zipcar’s more streamlined customization process.

Other car sharing networks that Zipcar might consider rolling into its empire in the future have additional hardware and software, too. Avancar, a Barcelona, Spain-based car sharing startup in which Zipcar took a minority stake last year, equips each vehicle in its fleet with a small computer and keypad below the rear-view mirror that allows drivers to make reservation changes and contact customer service reps when they enter a PIN, and which handles the mileage and fueling data (Zipcar has drivers manually enter odometer information at the gas pump).

One Way

Aside from the technology loaded into the vehicle itself, bringing Streetcar’s vehicles — and some 75,000 members — into the fold will also require a bridging of differences in the service model. Streetcar currently offers customers the option to request one-way trips. If users place the request at least 24 hours in advance, they can check out a car near their home, for example, and return it at the airport.

One-way rentals tend to bring inefficiency into the system, according to Ryan Chin, a PhD candidate in the Smart Cities research group at MIT (GigaOM Pro, sub. req’d). That’s primarily as a result of asymmetric trips, with an influx of people trying to go to commercial centers from residential areas around the same time.

Operators can deploy sensor technology and collect real-time data on their fleet, but that doesn’t solve the problem. Chin says the key to mitigating the redistribution issue rests largely on developing a better algorithm that would crawl transit-use data.

Zipcar, by contrast, offers only round-trip bookings — a fact that can eliminate the cost of having to redistribute vehicles until that algorithm’s perfected, but which limits the network’s potential to address the “last mile” gap in many mass transit systems (e.g. getting between the subway station and your final destination).

As Zipcar races to scoop up car sharing networks in its quest for a global presence, much of the hardware and services that are sustainable at relatively small scale could likely fall by the wayside. But Zipcar — which despite its ambitions has not matched Streetcar’s growth rate or size in the UK – could pick up more than just cars and subscribers along the way. If it’s careful not to stamp out too much of the identity of a startup that reportedly came close to breaking even in 2008 on sales of £15 million, doubled its user base in 2009 and in January predicted that it would reach 250,000 customers by 2012, then Zipcar could also pick up some much needed momentum overseas.

Photo courtesy of Zipcar

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Location-Based Services: From Mobile to Mobility

Electric Vehicles Give “Mobility as a Service” a Jumpstart

It’s the latest in a string of cities gearing up to launch bike sharing programs this year, some of them employing electronic docking stations powered by solar panels and connected to wi-fi networks, and giving users access to real-time info about bike availability through their smartphones. Paris, with the Velib program it launched back in 2007, helped popularize the idea of bike sharing networks and a growing number of cities are beginning to take up the charge.

All of this fits into the larger trends of smarter transportation systems, innovation around providing mobility as a service, and unconventional players taking on new roles in the transit game — from nonprofits to advertising giants to health insurance firms. These 10 programs offer a glimpse of how bike sharing is putting technology to work, who’s paying what, and what you might expect in your own city sometime soon.

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Electric Vehicles Give Mobility as a Service a Jumpstart

Photo courtesy of Flickr user sillygwailo and Sally M*’s photostream