The City of Vancouver has become the first major city in Canada to join a car-sharing network on a large scale as a way of reducing costs and vehicle emissions, while still ensuring employees have a car available to them for city business.

Under the plan, which was approved by city council last Thursday, Vancouver-based Co-operative Auto Network (CAN) will provide 20 low-emission vehicles for city business needs.

The vehicles will be located at city hall and various satellite offices during business hours. Outside those hours, the vehicles will be available for other car-sharing members to use.

The three-year contract with CAN will allow Vancouver to eliminate 35 vehicles from its current fleet, saving city hall approximately $13,000 in annual operating costs.

More importantly, it's expected to give city hall staff a reason to leave their cars at home, thereby cutting total emissions because fewer employees will be driving to work.

"One of the single-biggest reasons employees gave us as to why they don't carpool or take transit was 'I need a vehicle at work to do my job,' and clearly we don't have a good mechanism at work for making them available," said Sean Pander, Vancouver's climate protection program manager.

The city has a fleet of Ford Focus station wagons for city staff to use, but with each department assigned only a couple of cars, the vehicles weren't always available when needed, while others are rarely used. The older vehicles are also less fuel efficient than today's cars.

Now, staff from all city departments will have access to a pool of vehicles, with cars expected to be available when needed.

"Any other large employer that provides employees with vehicles to drive from point A to point B could take this same approach and see the same benefits as I see," Pander said.

"We get a better service, at a lower cost, and there's a fantastic public-good outcome. And so any employer that wants to save money, improve its own operations and service for its employees while doing a great public good, they could use this exact same strategy."

Pander hopes this is just the beginning of car sharing at city facilities.

"At the end of the three-year contract, we'll have to determine if we're better off going back to the way we used to do things, but it's hard for me to imagine that there are no good applications for car sharing," Pander said. "What we fully anticipate is once we start this, we will always be car sharing from now on."

Tracy Axelsson, who founded the co-operative in 1997, was thrilled to receive the city contract, and said it lends her organization added credibility.

"If it can work for 1,600 staff people, then it can work in a personal home," Axelsson said.

"I've often heard people say 'we have four cars and we can't make it work,' but it comes down to choices. This just broadens the range of choices, not just for city hall, but for everybody because it's not just going to be the 20 cars that are on city hall campus itself, but the 225 cars that are throughout Metro Vancouver."

The contract will allow the co-operative to grow its fleet, putting more cars on the streets for members during evenings and weekends.

The District of North Vancouver joined CAN earlier this year, but it presently only reserves one vehicle for district use.

dweir@blackpress.ca