Today, there was a record breaking heatwave across Southern California. Here in the OC, three cities (Santa Ana, Fullerton, and Yorba Linda) apparently cooked right past their old records by several degrees. They still manged to fall cold of Los Angeles however, whose 113 degree temperature apparently broke the thermometer at the National Weather Service downtown. My exposure to the heat wave was luckily very short before I was back in my thankfully air-conditioned apartment. Irvine, though still way up there, peaked only at 106.8 compared to our less fortunate neighbors. However, it’s easy to see why the claim that heat is one of the great killers holds so much weight. By the time I went from the student center back to my apartment, I was already feeling mild symptoms of heat exhaustion and dehydration. I wish I had some way to measure exactly how much water I was able to lose in that short period of time. Combined with only 17% humidity, the heat is oddly pleasant, until you realize that it is draining you of your precious bodily fluids at an alarming rate. Luckily, later in the day, I replenished myself with a large frozen yogurt waffle cone from Strickland’s.
Around 3 pm, despite the fact that my every waking moment should be spent trying to get ahead in statistics, I felt that this epic heat wave was quickly calling me to do something with the warm temperatures. Around Newport Beach, weather stations were only registering around 88-ish degrees, and the general trend was already starting to drop as the evening winds started to tepidly pick up again. I decided that I should go to the beach, because during a record setting heat wave that just what you’re suppose to do. I grabbed a Zipcar for 20 bucks and change and headed to my favorite spot at Newport Beach. It was beautiful. The water was the perfect temperature, the waves were filled with surfers catching perfect curls, and the low evening sun was was distant enough that is didn’t turn me into a sunburned mess. I swam in the cool waters for 40 minutes, felt the waves wash over me, and then headed homeward.
With that, this is the second time that I’ve used the Zipcar, and it certainly provides an entirely different way of thinking about transportation. You have to be extraordinarily conscious of how you’re managing the time that you’ve allowed for having a car, and yet at the same time it’s completely liberating in that the only time you need to concern yourself with anything having to do with a car is during those blocks you’ve specifically allocated.
I have no doubt at this point that my monthly automobile expenses will be lower (much lower) using the Zipcar than actually owning a vehicle. However, that’s not entirely a fair assessment. Much of the decrease in costs comes from the fact that I use the Zipcar substantially less than I would if I owned my own car. Here is the part where my inner economist begins to chime in. I think it would be fascinating to develop or see some kind of normative model of Zipcar usage. There would essentially be two models here. The first model would involve the choice of modes of transportation. It would be about how the consumer choses to either own their own car and use that, or to use a Zipcar in combination with other alternate modes of transportation such as the bus/train. The second model would then be the decision of when to actually use a Zipcar and for how long (I’m sure Zipcar probably has their own version of this model worked out, as it would help determine pricing, profitability, scheduling, etc).
I find the choice model to be the most interesting for a few reasons. First, we hardly ever consider the opportunity costs involved with what is essentially having our car sit in a parking lot. A car is a somewhat expensive piece of capital equipment, and yet we never think to ourselves, “Well, while I’m at work for 8 hours, I could be renting out my car rather than having it sit unused in a parking lot.” One of the correct ways to think about this problem in economics is to consider the value of the car and determine how much could be made off of the next best investment as the opportunity cost of ownership. That, however, would involve not owning the car at all, rather than simply having the car be used while you’re not using it. So, thinking about Zipcars might provide a deeper understanding of what the opportunity cost of having a car sit in a garage or parking lot is. In the case of a Zipcar user, the opportunity cost is $8 an hour. If you choose to have your Zipcar sit in a parking lot, you’re having to pay $8 an hour to maintain rights over that car while it sits there.
Which brings me to my second interest, Zipcars make the marginal cost of driving very apparent to the driver. As I mentioned above, the cost of having a Zipcar for an hour is $8. Most of the time, I think, drivers that own their own car think about driving as if the marginal cost of driving were close to zero. We all make estimates of gas millage, registration costs, insurance costs, repairs, etc. but how many people could reasonably say how much their morning commute costs? Or, put better, how much does that detour down the scenic route cost compared to the regular grinding commute? How much does it cost to go through the Starbuck’s drive thru on the way to work? And, once again, how much is being paid to have your car sit in the parking lot waiting for you until the exact moment when you’re ready to leave? Being a part of a shared car program puts a real marginal cost on driving that the consumer has to confront every time he or she gets behind the wheel. These kinds of things change behavior and it would be worth some careful study to see just how much. Since I’m considering doing my undergrad research in urban transportation, it certainly would be worth my time to think about it more. I’m hoping it will involve more trips to the beach.
