I lived in Berkeley andI had no problems, and I believe that San Francisco Bay Area has the best public transportation in the country. But still, if we wanted to go somewhere off the basic routes we needed to rent a car.
Even the large cities in the US are spread out -- cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix are relatively recent, they were built around cars, and therefore they are not friendly to public transportation.
Self-driving cars can solve a lot of these problems.
Very good point, Mashka. No, the US infrastructure on public transportation is spotty. Particulary here in California, where everyone travels independently for everything, and public transportation has been limited.
What does seem to be changing are the development of centralized centers that increasingly consolidate living, work, entertainment, etc., through developments and urban planning. It may take numerous developments to confirm the demand and advance the public transportation system that makes that feasible.
We clearly are not like Europe and have a long way to go for effective public transportation.
as America becomes increasingly urban, there's much less need for households to own a car, or a second car
Does urbanisation also mean a better public transportation system? As far as I know- there are not so many large cities in the States- in small towns, a car is still the only way to get somewhere- anywhere, isn't that? Or this situation has already changed and people need less cars anywhere in the USA?
For this merger to work, it really needs to be what I've sometimes seen referred to as a "reverse acquisition." Zipcar needs to transform Avis's business processes from the inside.
It sounds as if Avis at least recognizes the value in Zipcar, Alison. I like Mitch's point that their success has as much to do with the new business model, and use of technology, as their vehicles.
This truly will be fascinating to watch. If Avis puts the right combinations together, they will create a truly convenient process that will cause people to rely more on the service, creating a viable alternative to owning a car/per person.
Maybe an additional bonus can be the upgraded service models for all rental cars!
We tried Zipcar on a vacation in 2008 or so. It was a fantastic experience -- no paperwork, just get in the car and go is if you owned it. And they had a fun selection of cars too; we got to drive a Prius and Cooper Mini.
I haven't used Zipcar, but I have used Avis--and I hope the car-rental company takes a lesson from Zipcar, rather than the other way around. It's so frustrating today that companies cling to their reams of paperwork, despite having so much information about their customers already at their fingertips and deep within their databases. By leveraging the best of Zipcar, Avis would open itself to a younger group of car rental customers, naturally becoming the de facto car-rental choice for Zipcar customers who need a rental car. But if they mess-up Zipcar, they will alienate that entire customer population.
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Businesses often struggle to decide which domain to use. When it comes to purchasing a domain name, you have plenty of extensions to choose from, ranging from .com and .net, to .me, and even .mobi. But which one should you pick?
I've been writing about how the next evolution of the Internet might just be an advertising revolution, and how corporate IT can stay involved as the enablers and providers of the technologies that make this possible.
In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.
The smartphone market reached a significant milestone, a breakthrough that may cause vendors to celebrate but could strain the capabilities of IT service desks.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
