Summarize - Research Paper Example

Communauto Communauto is a company that provides car sharing service to its subscribers.The company is based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The number of the company’s current subscribers is 20,000 and the number of vehicles shared by the users of the service is 1,000. The company was founded in the year 1994 in Quebec City. The main purpose of the company is to encourage environmentalism by reducing the number of cars on the road and by reducing the overall number of miles driven annually. The main objective of the company is to provide its users with a more environment friendly alternative to owning a car.

The service provided by the company is still unique but over the years it has received significant popularity in the cities in which the company operates. The car sharing service provided by the company is economically feasible and the rationale behind the service is also encouraged by the environmentalists and the users alike. According to a survey conducted in the year 2006, it was found out that one-third of the users of the company either sold out their vehicle or gave up the idea of acquiring their own vehicle.

In this manner the company met its objective of reducing the number of car owners. One of the objectives of the company is to reduce the amount of pollution that results from harmful emissions from car use. By providing a vehicle to a subscriber for a limited period of time, the company succeeds in its objective of discouraging prolonged usage of cars. In this way harmful emissions can be reduced and the overall pollution in the environment can be slowed down. The company provides the car sharing service in the following manner.

The subscriber is required to reserve a vehicle at a specified station of the company either in person or by making a call. The subscriber is also required to specify the time when the car would be needed. The subscriber can then take the car from the station and return the car to the station where he picked it up from. A detailed invoice is sent to the subscribers at the end of the month in accordance with the length of the reservation and the distance traveled. The company pays for the insurance, registration, maintenance and gas therefore the subscribers are charged merely for the time the car was in their use.

Apart from giving out cars for a limited time periods, the company also provides services which include packages for traveling through both cars and public transport. In this way the company pursues its goal reducing the number of vehicles on the road. In my opinion, the service provided by the company has a number of good aspects. The company provides its subscribers the convenience of using a car when they cannot own it because of economical barriers. The company provides the service at an economically sound rate therefore more and more people would be able to utilize this service and have the ease of traveling by a car.

The company also encourages environment friendly ways of traveling and its car sharing service is one of the initiatives that the company has taken in order to make the environment greener. The service provided by the company is good for users because they can have the convenience of traveling through a car without worrying about its registration, insurance or maintenance. The users can also pick different cars at different times and apart from that, users have the expediency of reserving cars without any restrictions of time.

Thus it can be inferred that the service provided by Communauto is beneficial for both users and the environment. REFERENCES Communauto. A Different Kind of Car Use. [Web]. Available from http://www.communauto.com/comment_ENG.html [March 29, 2011]