Of course some people do need a car to drive somewhere almost every day, to work, home and after work. They want a car in their own driveway. They need to pay its insurance, registration and 6 monthly WOFs. They need to pay for servicing and watch it depreciate.

Not cityhop members. They save money. They need a car sometimes to go somewhere. That's why they joined up to use cityhop. They book online ( for 1 hour to a few days), go to the handy location and swipe their smartcard. The doors unlock and off they drive. Cityhop even pays the gas! Then the member brings it back, checking there is enough fuel for the next driver - if not they fill up using the petrol card. It's that simple. Now do the sums.

Individual members pay an annual fee of $75 with a standard excess of $1000 (this can reduced). They get a membership card that gives them access  to 30 cars in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Members can use cars in any of these locations. Corporate members pay $95 + GST and have different insurance excess options.

Individuals pay $15 an hour or $75 for 24 hours. If you drive more than 100 km you are charged 25c a kilometre. Corporate members pay $14 + GST or $75 + GST for 24 hours and the extra milage if they exceed the daily 100 kilometres.

Car share is not just for those who are watching their pennies. Cityhop is an eco-friendly business. The Daihatsu Sirions and Mitsubishi i-cars were chosen for their fuel efficiency and other eco-friendly qualities.  Car share supports those who use public transport and have occassional need of a car. 

Car share cars are reported to take  up to 8 private cars off the road according to Zipcar and Streetcar.  Obviously fewer cars on the road means less congestion, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, less pollutants in our air and waterways, convenience, cost efficiencies and money savings.

“One of the barriers to people using public transport according to the Auckland Regional Council,” says former city councillor and CEO of CityhopVictoria Carter, “is the lack of emergency transport should someone need a car after they have caught a bus or train  to town. Cityhop is that answer if you need to dash home, take a child to the Doctor or get to an unexpected appointment economically.



Concepts like Cityhop aren’t new, with the most well-known being  the UK Streetcar and US and UK based Zipcar. Lee Iacocca and the former head of Hertz bought into one of the largest car sharing companies, Flexcar before it merged with Zipcar a year ago.  In Australia, Go Get and Flexicar have received state government funding to get off the ground.

Car share was launched in 1987 in Switzerland, a year later Germany followed. It went to North Amercia via Quebec in 1994 and today the USA has 26 car sharing programmes with over 324,000 members sharing 7770 cars. Australia now has 4 car share companies offering cars in Syndey, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth in CBD areas.