Montréal, March 15th 2018 – Communauto, the largest free-floating carsharing operator in Greater Montréal, salutes the City of Montréal’s new position on free-floating carsharing vehicles.
“Demands for free-floating vehicles are far from being met. Also, the potential is great compared to other Canadian cities. The City’s new policy will allow us to overcome the barriers that have slowed us down in the past. It will also contribute to significantly reduce the circulation of cars and their emissions.” says Mr. Benoît Robert, CEO of Communauto.
The new administration’s initiatives : a positive response to Communauto’s demands:
- Enlarging the free-floating service area to include the boroughs of Ahuntsic-Cartierville and Ville-Marie. Note that the free-floating service is already available in Verdun and Outremont. As a result, the City’s new policy will allow us to improve the service coverage in those boroughs ;
- Eliminating the cap on the number of permits for hybrid free-floating vehicles and simplifying procedures to obtain them ;
- The introduction of incentives for the electrification of the fleet of vehicles, starting by a lower price for the vignettes emitted for those particular vehicles. Communauto already has Canada’s largest carsharing fleet of electric vehicles (120 EV). Most of them are part of its free-floating service.
A positive alternative
“Apprehensions were brought up in the past about the free-floating carsharing service being detrimental to the cab industry, and eventually cannibalizing public transit. After several years of service, it seems obvious to us that there are more opportunities than risks in developing mobility alternatives to the private ownership of cars. Communauto is strongly committed to strengthening the relationship between the actors within this ecosystem”. adds M. Robert.
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About Communauto
Communauto is the largest carsharing service in Québec. Founded in 1994, the company with an environmental, social and urbanistic mission has a fleet of over 2000 vehicles in 8 cities: Kingston, Ottawa, Gatineau, Montréal (Laval and Longueuil), Québec, Sherbrooke, Halifax and Paris (France).
In Montréal, Communauto offers to its users a station-bound service with reservation of over 1000 vehicles and a free-floating service, Auto-mobile, that counts 600 vehicles.
Communauto is also the largest operator of shared electric vehicles in Canada. Over the years, it also developed several partnerships with public transportation operators, urban and long distance, taxi companies and bike sharing.
For more information:
Marco Viviani, vice-président
Développement stratégique 1 514 499-2804
mviviani@communauto.ca