AAA Plans for a Car-sharing Future

The century-old driver’s association continues to innovate with Gig, a new car-share service.

SAN FRANCISCO April 19, 2017; NACS reported that when AAA started in 1902, Americans were just beginning to see automobiles around town. Today, the nonprofit organization has launched Gig, a new Bay area car-sharing service that lets users drive a car one-way, then park it in any parking spot available, Fast Company reports.

“We were the first to create road signs and form the DMV, and eventually evolved into roadside assistance and insurance as primary means of continuing to enable mobility for our members,” said Mike Hetke, executive vice president and chief innovation officer at AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah. This branch is in charge of new services for AAA. “We now find ourselves, over a century later, at the forefront of another potential massive shift in personal mobility as we see changing fundamental shifts in attitudes about individual vehicle ownership, moving to transportation as a service, and a new generation that may be more inclined to collaboratively consume transportation versus owning the vehicle themselves.”

A3 Venture, AAA’s new innovation lab, developed Gig, which wants to meet the need in local transit starting in Berkeley and Oakland, California. What makes Gig different from other car-sharing services is the one-way option—drivers don’t have to return the vehicle to the pickup location. Rather, AAA has an agreement with local governments that Gig cars can be left in nearly any legal parking space in either city. An app locates an available car, which is unlocked with the user’s phone or RFID membership card. Membership with AAA isn’t required to use the app. All Gig cars are hybrid-electric Priuses.

“Unlike traditional station-based models where you go out shopping for the day and you’re paying for the car while you’re not using it, while it’s sitting there parked, with the one-way model, you can take a car, drive to where you’re going, end your trip, and not have to pay for a vehicle while you’re doing whatever you’re doing,” said Hetke. “And then grab a different car to drive back home.”