Students needing a vehicle to run errands or just to get away from campus now officially have a new transportation option.

Zipcar, N.C. State and Meredith College officially launched their partnership Wednesday.  Zipcar is considered a green transportation method because it rents cars by the hour or by the day.

Included with the rental fee is gas, insurance and roadside assistance.  Students have to register with Zipcar before their first rental, but can rent a car at any time once registered. 

Four cars will be parked at N.C. State, while Meredith will offer two cars.  N.C. State will have two Toyota Scion xB Hatchbacks and two Toyota Prius Hybrids.  Meredith’s campus will host a Honda Civic and a Honda Insight. N.C. State students can rent cars from either campus.

According to Rich Paisner, a Zipcar senior account manager for the University, using Zipcar is a simple process.

“As long as you’re 18 years of age, have at least one year of driving experience and are affiliated with the University, you’re eligible.  The way it works is once you go through the registration process, you get the Zipcard in the mail. Zipcard is your access to all of our cars,” Paisner said. 

The Zipcard looks like a credit card, but functions differently.  It is required to lock and unlock the doors of the car as well as turn on the ignition.  There is a sensor on each car where the driver uses the Zipcard, according to Paisner. 

“It looks just like a credit card, but it’s got a little sensor in it,” Paisner said. “All of our cars are electronically connected.”

N.C. State and Meredith partnered with the City of Raleigh to find a car-sharing program, according to Alison Carpenter, transportation planner with University Transportation.

“We went out with Meredith and the City of Raleigh and entered a selection process to find a car-share vendor to serve the entire community,” Carpenter said.  “There are cars coming later for downtown Raleigh, but we’re not involved in all that.”

Once the decision to locate a car-share vendor was reached, companies submitted proposals to the colleges and the city for review, according to Carpenter.

“We had a scoring matrix,” Carpenter said.  “We looked at all kinds of conditions and variables, like how much insurance coverage they offered to participants, what they expected of us as the client, what they charge their members, how it is to reserve a vehicle [and] how many miles they give you free with your hourly or daily rate.”

The list was narrowed to two, and Zipcar came out on top.

 ”They came to campus and we interviewed them.  We had an open panel.  Student Government was involved in the interview process.  Meredith staff was involved, N.C. State staff, Meredith students, N.C. State students,” Carpenter said. “We all had this interview process where we all got to ask all the questions, clear up any muddy water, and then Zipcar ended up scoring the highest on the matrix after that whole process.”

Having Zipcar on campus does not cost the University anything, according to Carpenter.

“We’re not paying Zipcar to be here.  Their business model is based on making a profit loaning the vehicles to their members.  It’s an individual membership agreement with Zipcar,” Carpenter said. 

According to Carpenter, the University and Transportation see this program as a way to help with parking on campus in the long run.

“We’re really excited.  I work for transportation and basically we see this as a great opportunity for folks who are considering coming to campus and are on the edge about whether or not to bring a car,” Carpenter said.  “This offers an option to folks–it’s an alternative to car ownership.”

Student Government has helped with the publicity of Zipcar, according to Matt Gromlich, director of transportation for Student Government and a senior in plant biology.

“I contacted Alison [Carpenter] over this past summer.  She was already working on it a little bit, so I kind of jumped in and was able to get more of a student perspective and bring that to her, get Student Government involved, work out publicity for it,” Gromlich said. 

According to Gromlich, Student Government is excited about the impact Zipcar will make on campus.

“For every Zipcar you put on campus, they say [it] takes away 15 other cars,” Gromlich said. “It helps the environment and Student Government [is] really big into sustainability as well, so it could reduce the number of parking sports on the perimeter so help with our parking problem, too, which is a really big deal.”