GoCar celebrates milestones with 24 hours’ free registration

31 Jul 2014

Michael Phillips, Dublin City engineer and director of traffic, and Colm Brady, managing director of GoCar Ireland. Photo by Conor McCabe Photography

It’s been one year since GoCar became the first car club in Ireland to be granted a licence by Dublin City Council and, in that time, the car-sharing service has reached several milestones.

GoCar is the only service of its kind in Ireland, allowing users access to a car or van when they need it on a pay-per-trip basis. Think Dublin Bikes, but for cars.

Through a licence granted by Dublin City Council on 1 August 2013, GoCar can operate from any of 30,000 pay-and-display parking spaces around the city, offering free parking in these spots for drivers.

“The entire scheme can only be described as a complete success and we are very happy with our decision to grant the first on-street car club licence and car club parking permits last year,” said Dublin City engineer and director of traffic Michael Phillips.

GoCar first launched in Cork in 2008 and began building a network of bases in Dublin in 2010. The most recent addition was a base on the campus of University College Dublin and there are more planned for this year, including key locations such as St Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square.

To date, the service has seen almost 15,000 trips and its fleet has grown to more than 70 vehicles for the use of more than 2,000 members.

“The speed of progress of GoCar has surpassed all our expectations and we are especially pleased with the growth of our membership base in Dublin,” said Colm Brady, managing director of GoCar Ireland.

“Car clubs like GoCar have been hugely successful in a host of major European and US cities to date and the concept is rapidly catching on now in Ireland. The affordability of the service has been well documented to date, with several GoCar users advocating its financial benefit. We hope to inform more consumers of the benefits of GoCar for the remainder of 2014 and continue our rapid growth,” he added.

From midnight tonight (31 July) to midnight on 1 August, new users can sign up to GoCar for free as the €50 registration will be waived for 24 hours only.

These new users can also avail of their first hour of use free of charge, with subsequent rates charged per hour and kilometre, varying from day to night-time.

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

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