(rshsdepot) Caltrain offers patrons cars in Palo Alto area

["Jim Dent" <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

-From the San Francisco Chronicle...

New car program at Caltrain
Caltrain offers patrons cars in Palo Alto area
Program to ease commute to and from station

Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer    Monday, July 9, 2001

Commuters who say they'd take public transportation to work if only it
didn't leave them carless during the day may have to find another excuse.

Starting as early as this week, an innovative program linking a fleet of
Hondas with Caltrain patrons will offer commuters on the mid-Peninsula a
whole new way to get around.

It's called CarLink II, and if it's successful, the California Department of
Transportation, a co-sponsor of the project, will consider expanding it to
other sites in the state, said spokeswoman Lauren Wonder.

"Caltrans is interested in looking at all modes of transportation and
creating the best mix to keep California moving," Wonder said.

Here's how CarLink II works: Those who either live or work in the Palo Alto
area can pay $300 a month to use one of 27 cars parked at the California
Avenue train station.

The fee covers gas, insurance, registration, maintenance, roadside service
and cleaning -- basically, all the un-fun aspects of being a car owner. It
also provides members with a "smart-key fob" and an identification code that
allows them to get into a car and drive away.

Some members, called work-based users, will jump off the train and into a
car in the morning, drive it to work and keep it until they return to the
station to head home.

So-called home-based users -- those who live in the Palo Alto area -- will
retrieve a car from the in the evening and use it overnight, returning it in
the morning. They will also be allowed to have it on weekends.

In essence, they'll be two shifts passing in the night.

The car-sharing idea isn't new; Switzerland was doing it in 1948. San
Francisco began a program in March, and the Oakland City Council is taking
up the issue this week.

But CarLink II stretches the concept. While the other programs cater to
occasional users, generally people without cars, CarLink II targets
commuters, who ride public transit and will use the cars every day as their
primary source of mobility. And it pairs up their needs, so the cars are
never sitting idle waiting for the occasional user to get the urge to go to
Costco.

The idea grew out of a doctoral thesis written by Oakland resident Susan
Shaheen for a degree in environmental aspects of transportation and
technology management, which she received jointly from University of
California at Davis, and the University of California at Berkeley. Both
schools are providing research assistance.

"I was very interested in the concept I'd seen in Europe," Shaheen said. "I
thought, 'Could we modify it and link it to transit?' "

Shaheen tested her idea with the yearlong CarLink I project at the Dublin-
Pleasanton BART station in 1999. There, 54 participants shared 12 vehicles.
She deemed the program a success, but said it was not continued because it
was only planned -- and funded -- as an experiment.


PILOT PROGRAM
CarLink II is a pilot program with no end in sight.

"We needed to rebirth it," she said. "What we wanted to do was find a place
very synergistic for the concept which would let us explore long-term
financial feasibility. Palo Alto stood out because they don't have a lot of
shuttle services running to the employers.

"There are a lot of employers with less than 100 people. They have much more
limited resources to provide shuttles. It's an opportunity for them to
provide this service to their employees."

So far, CarLink II is negotiating contracts with a half-dozen companies,
most in the Stanford Research Park, west of El Camino Real along Page Mill
Road. Individual users can sign up on the Web site at www.gocarlink.com.

Caltrans was interested in the concept -- to the tune of a $700,000 startup
grant. Actually running the program is expected to cost $250,000 the first
year, Shaheen said. After that, organizers hope it will pay for itself.

American Honda Motor Co. also signed on, donating 27 ultra-low emission
Civics outfitted with wireless electronic technology that will enable
members to drive them and organizers to keep track of the cars. The cars are
valued at $15,810 each.


SMART-KEY FOB
Honda won't get money for its involvement; instead, it will have an
opportunity to research its "telematic" technology, which connects each car
to the network.

"We see ourselves in the mobility business, as much as we are in the car or
motorcycle business," said Robert Bienenfeld, senior manager of automobile
product planning, who is working with the CarLink II program.

"If we can achieve personal mobility and have less congestion and less
pollution and better land use, we're very excited to do that," he said.

In fact, it is Honda's telematics that enables CarLink II to work, Shaheen
said.

Users unlock a car by holding the smart-key fob against a transponder on the
car's back window. Once inside, they punch their personal code into a
display terminal, much like using an ATM.

If the system recognizes the user as valid, it will allow the car to be
started with the universal ignition key that each member receives. It
doesn't matter if a key is copied, or falls into the hands of a nonmember,
because the key will only work if a valid password is typed in.

The only glitch is that, conceivably, a member could return to the well-
marked CarLink II car he's using to run errands to find another member had
taken it, Shaheen said. For that reason, she's working on developing a gizmo
that would temporarily block other members from driving the car away.

The program will be rolled out incrementally, she said. About a dozen cars
are already at the train station, just waiting for the contracts to be
approved.

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