I don’t own a car but I’m a member of Vrtucar car-sharing service. Sometimes people ask me how car-sharing works.

Last weekend I got a Vrtucar and did some shopping. First I went online and reserved car 1425 for an hour from 11:30 to 12:30.

Car 1425 is parked in a lot one minute’s walk from my house. Usually I use that one, but if it’s in use and I really need a car I’ll walk or ride my bike to where the next closest one is parked.

There’s my car. Most of them are Toyota Echos but there are a couple of small Matrix SUVs and a full-size cargo van, and now there is a Civic hybrid. It might be fun to drive that one sometime. It’s parked in the Glebe.

Echo

This is the lock-box where the key is kept. Each location has one of these. Vrtucar members have a key that fits all the lock-boxes.

In the car is a log book where you write down your in and out time and your mileage.

Here’s me driving my Echo into the underground parking lot at Hartman’s.

It was a typical rainy Saturday at Hartman’s. Here’s a good dog patiently waiting.

Colourful veggies. I think they use trick lighting to make them look so good. They don’t look that good in my kitchen.

Hartman’s lounge area with piano player. That guy was playing the piano there today too.

Look at all those groceries! I couldn’t carry all that on my bike.

Next stop: Guess where?

Yes you’re right, it’s the Glebe liquor store. I picked up some refreshments and headed home in the rain. My hour was almost up. I just had time to unload the groceries and booze at my house and then return the Echo to the same place I got it from.

How much does it cost?

That’s what everybody wants to know. It’s tricky to say because the cost formula is quite complicated. Usually I point out that you only have a car when you need one so you don’t pay anything for parking, registration, insurance, gas, or repairs.

But how much?

First you have to pay $500. This is refundable when you leave so it’s more like an investment than a fee, except that it doesn’t earn interest. So just save up the $500 and then forget about it.

Then you pay an amount per month based on how much you drive. There are three categories. I only use a car once or twice a month so I’m in category C, low usage. I pay $10 a month.

Then you get a bill each month for the actual hours and kilometers that you used. Everybody pays $2.50 an hour ($3.00 on the weekend).

The mileage charge is added onto the hourly fee. Low-usage drivers like me pay more per km than more frequent drivers. I pay 41 cents/km. (Frequent drivers pay only 29 cents/km, but they pay a much higher monthly rate.)

See, I told you it was complicated. So last Saturday’s shopping trip would cost $3.00 for a Saturday hour, plus 6 km @ .41 = about $2.50 for a total of $5.50. Plus I paid $10 basic rate for the month. So if this is the only trip I take this month my cost will be about $15.50 plus taxes. (It is better to take a couple of trips to get a better return on the $10/month basic rate. Sort of. It costs more in real terms, but it costs less per trip. At this point in the world of mathematics my brain freezes up.)

Actually I find one hour a little short for a shopping trip. If you get stuck in traffic or something you could be late. It would be ok if my trip didn’t also include the liquor store, but why wouldn’t it? So usually I reserve for 1 1/2 hours. (You can reserve for as little as 1/2 hour, but in reality it’s very difficult to do anything in 1/2 hour, including filling in the log book and walking around the car to see if there are any big dents in it.)

So?

It’s good for me, a downtown-dweller who doesn’t approve of cars anyway. I used to have a car and I had to pay $35 a month just to park it. Then I had to insure it and register it, and then it needed oil changes and other maintenance. I felt like a jerk paying all that for a car that I didn’t drive to work and only used a few times a month.

It’s not perfect. You can’t just hop in the car and take a drive whenever you want.

Actually, “taking a drive” in a vrtucar seems like a dubious proposition to me. I’ve never taken one out just for that purpose. It would seem frivolous, and you’d have to keep an eye on the time, so it wouldn’t be a very relaxing drive. But that’s just me.

Plus I don’t think it really pays to drive one somewhere and park it and do something, such as take a hike or attend a party or a meeting, and then drive it home again, because the clock is ticking all the time the car is just parked. (But you’re not putting any miles on it when it’s just parked. Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea after all. Not sure.)

Some people try to compare it to renting a car, but you can’t rent a car for just an hour or two. I see it as being more like taking a taxi, but you do your own driving and the car will stick around while you do your shopping and then take you to the liquor store after.

It works for me. Here’s the Vrtucar website: http://vrtucar.com.