CITY OF HAYWARD - File #: RPT 15-057

Date	Action By	Action	Result	Action Details	Meeting Details	Video
12/10/2015	Council Sustainability Committee			None	Meeting details	None

DATE: December 10, 2015

TO: Council Sustainability Committee

FROM: Director of Utilities and Environmental Services

SUBJECT

Title

Update on Car Sharing Grant

Recommendation
RECOMMENDATION

That the Committee reviews and comments on this report.

Body

BACKGROUND
Staff submitted an application for a car sharing grant in October 2014 and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) approved the application on December 18, 2014, formally selecting Hayward to be included in the 2015 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). The 2015 TIP is a comprehensive listing of projects in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area that are to receive federal funds this year through MTC.

The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the progress of the grant and receive the Committee’s input. Specifically, staff would appreciate input on the suggested provisions for the Car Sharing Request for Proposals (RFP). For more background on car sharing and this grant, please see the original staff reports to the Sustainability Committee and City Council. Links to those reports are provided in the Related Items section at the end of this report.

DISCUSSION

Timeline

The original grant timeline anticipated getting the authorization to proceed from the Federal Department of Transportation (DOT) by January 2015. However, there have been staffing constraints at Caltrans and discussions with MTC about eligible expenses. In specific, there have been issues with finding vehicles that meet the City’s efficiency goals as well as the grant requirements. Because of this, the project is approximately eleven months behind the originally proposed schedule.

In order to move the project forward, staff recently revised the project scope with MTC to use the grant funds entirely for marketing, rather than to subsidize the purchase of vehicles. Staff spoke with the car sharing providers and they preferred support in the form of marketing. Staff anticipates receiving the DOT authorization to proceed before the New Year. A revised project schedule is below in Next Steps.

Vendors

Staff has been in contact with the two largest car sharing providers in the Bay Area, Zipcar and Carma/City Carshare. Both are interested in coming to Hayward and are planning to submit bids in response to the City’s RFP.

• Zipcar: Zipcar is the largest car sharing provider in the world. Zipcar members can check out cars in most major cities nationally and globally. There are several Zipcar locations on the Cal State East Bay campus.

• Carma/City Carshare: These companies formed a partnership in early 2015 to be able to serve more customers. City Carshare is a Bay Area nonprofit provider with an environmental mission. They claim to have the greenest fleet of all car sharing providers. In the past, Carma has specialized in online apps that help commuters carpool. They are trying new approaches to carpooling, such as hosting cars and vans that go from specific neighborhoods to workspaces.

Partners

Staff has been in contact with potential partners throughout the process, including Life Chiropractic College, Chabot College, and Eden Housing. The partners are excited about the possibility of getting car sharing at their locations and support having a coordinated effort in order to best serve community members.

RFP - Suggested Provisions

Staff anticipates including the following provisions in the RFP and is asking for feedback from the Committee. Proposals would receive additional points if the provider offers:

• Hybrids, plug-in hybrids, or electric vehicles - Staff is looking for a vendor that can provide fuel efficient and low emission vehicles. Vendors are hesitant to use fully electric vehicles because of the user learning curve. Plug-in hybrids may be a good alternative.

• Willingness to try new locations - Both vendors are excited to place cars in the Watkins Street parking garage due to its proximity to BART. Staff is looking for a vendor that would be willing to also place cars in less-tested locations, such as at Life Chiropractic College, the Amtrak station, or as part of the new South Hayward BART development.

• Wheelchair accessible vehicles - Staff has been in conversation with the City’s Paratransit Program about the need for accessible vehicles and is looking for a vendor that can provide one.

• Innovative approach to serving Hayward’s workforce - In the past, car sharing has primarily been used to serve residents in the evenings and on weekends. Staff is looking for a vendor that is exploring innovative approaches to also serving commuters, which would help with traffic congestion.

For example, Carma is currently serving a few business complexes in San Francisco that have groups of workers who commute from Contra Costa County. Carma provides cars in their home neighborhoods and the workers carpool to San Francisco and back. The more workers in the cars, the less Carma charges each rider. A comparable approach would be for Hayward residents who work in Silicon Valley. For more information see <https://gocarma.com/>.

Selecting multiple vendors could be considered if that would best serve Hayward. The benefits of multiple vendors are the ability to serve more than one membership pool, greater diversity of services, and greater competition. The drawback is that there will be fewer public parking spots available for each vendor, which may reduce the service level. Users will likely not want to pay membership fees for multiple vendors.

NEXT STEPS

Once the revised MTC TIP is approved in early December, staff is anticipating implementing the grant according to the following timeline:

Feb. 2016	Release RFP
June 2016	Select vendor(s) and award contract(s)
July - Oct. 2016	Mobilization and marketing
By Nov. 2016	Launch car sharing locations
Nov. 2016 - Nov. 2017	Evaluation

Prepared by: Mary Thomas, Management Analyst

Staff contact

Recommended by: Alex Ameri, Director of Utilities and Environmental Services

end

Approved by:

Fran David, City Manager