Hamburg : City News
Last update : July 2005
Successful partnership between public transport and car sharing in Hamburg
Hamburger Verkehrsverbund,the local public transport authority, announced in June new developments of its successful partnership with Greenwheels, a car sharing company, initiated in 1998.
New prices for short term car rental based on an easily structured tariff-system are proposed to holders of public transport season passes, exempting them completely from any entry fee, deposit or monthly fixed rates. Service is available by phone and online 24 hours a day. The success of online booking system led to the closing of the rental office near the central station.
For a middle-class car, rental cost range from 1&euro per hour +0.10&euro/km during nighttime to 3&euro per hour +0.10&euro/km during daytime, allowing average savings of &euro200 per month compared to the cost of car ownership and use. At the moment 60 vehicles are available in 30 rental locations in Hamburg, additionally locations are in preparation.
To promote the cooperation, HVV uses its marketing channels, i.e. by placing advertisements on its railway stations or distributing mailings to households around the rental locations. Apart from that, there are no costs for the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund arising from this partnership. (added July 2005)
http://www.hvv.de
http://www.greenwheels.de
Quality Management System
HVV agreed with the operators upon quality-standards for the different modes of transport within the HVV network, as there are metro-, rapid-transit rail-, bus- and ferry services. The next step, we are currently working on, is the development of a Quality-Management-System. The system should ensure that the operators meet the quality objectives and it is based on three components: Customer-Satisfaction-Surveys (CSS), Mystery-Shopping-Surveys (MSS) and Direct-Performance-Measurements. The system is planned to have an incentive impact, which means that there will be not only penalties for failing the quality objectives but also a bonus for exceeding the targets. The negotiations between HVV, operators and PTAs are planned to be finished in 2005 so that the system can be implemented this year as well.
Expansion of the HVV area to the South
Within the 2 past years, the HVV region expended its territory twice. The implementation of the regional expension to the North with a full integration of four counties took place at the end of 2002. Two years later, at the end of 2004, three more counties in the South have been integrated in the HVV area.
Although the expension is implemented towards our customers, internal procedures wtill need to be reorganised. For example, the co-operation with and between the new operators needs to be put on a new basis, our corporate design has to be carried out into our new regions and the allocation of the fare revenues have to be organised.
Other projects are:
Harmonisation of transport contracts
Further development of the customer information concept
