Industry Carsharing Headquarters Dublin Number of locations 51 | Area served Dublin, Cork Founded May 2008 Type of business Carsharing | |
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Key people Colm Brady, Jonathan Roche | ||
GoCar is the first Carsharing service in Ireland. It launched in Cork in September 2008, with the support of Cork City Council as a pilot scheme. Cork City Council gave GoCar use of 3 car parking locations in Cork City as part of a wider pilot scheme. Ireland's National Spatial Strategy has noted CarSharing as one element of the strategy. GoCar teamed up with Cambio CarSharing to provide the service. Cambio are one of Europe's largest Carsharing providers currently based in Germany and Belgium. GoCar expanded to Dublin in September 2010, and is now in 32 locations in Dublin City Centre and 5 in Cork City Centre with a number of bases having multiple vehicles.
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Investment
During June 2012, GoCar was relaunched in the Mansion House Dublin by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Andrew Montague. GoCar announced that it had received significant funding from the owners of Irish Car Rentals which would allow the company expand to having 200 cars on the road by the end of 2013.
Dublin City Council by-laws
On 1 August 2013, Dublin City Council's new by-laws in relation to car clubs came into effect. GoCar was presented with the city's first on-street Car Club licence on the same day. To coincide with the announcement of this development, GoCar increased its number of cars in Dublin to 50, with 31 of these cars availing of the new on-street licence in 32 locations around Dublin.
All of these new locations are highly visible and convenient, and won't be liable for on-street car parking charges. This means, a GoCar with this licence can be parked anywhere in the city and not have to pay parking.
"Dublin City Council wants Car Clubs operating from on-street parking spaces because we believe they will play an important role in improving traffic management in the city. Research shows that the number of miles people drive goes down and there is an increase in walking and cycling as Car Clubs become established." (Dublin's Lord Mayor OisÃn Quinn)
Dublin City Council sees numerous benefits in Car Clubs, including:
GoCar Fleet
90% of the GoCar fleet are low emission vehicles. Currently the fleet consists of a range of cars including: