Communauto welcomes City of Montréal's position shift concerning free-floating vehicles with enthusiasm

MONTRÉAL, March 15, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - Communauto, the largest free-floating carsharing operator in Greater Montréal, salutes the City of Montréal's new position on free-floating carsharing vehicles. 

"Demand concerning free-floating vehicles is far from being met and the potential is still great compared to other Canadian cities. The City's new policy will allow us to overcome the barriers that have been slowing us down in the past and to contribute even more significantly in reducing the circulation of cars and their emissions." says Mr. Benoît Robert, President and founder of Communauto.

The new administrations' initiatives are a positive response to many demands previously put forward by Communauto:

• Enlarging the free-floating service area to include the boroughs of Ahuntsic-Cartierville and Ville-Marie (the free-floating service was already available in Verdun and Outremont, but 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 the simplification of the procedure to get them;
• Incentives for the electrification of the car fleet, starting by a lower price for the vignettes emitted to 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. 

"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.

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.

SOURCE COMMUNAUTO