Zipcar is More Than a Simple Car Sharing Service

Living in an urban area probably know all about car-sharing service Zipcar. For the rest of the world, Zipcar made its splash in the world by demonstrating its upcoming iPhone application during the speech of this year's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The demo is impressive not only for many iPhone owners Zipcar customers it generated a wave of curiosity among the geek crowd Zipcar is it and how the technology behind the service works. After some discussion right here on the site of orbit and numerous questions from readers, we decided to have a look behind the curtains Zipcar to learn more about the system, learn the most complex and cooler than you originally thought.

What is Zipcar?

For those not yet familiar with Zipcar is a service of car sharing in over 50 cities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, including (without limitation) of Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Phoenix, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Nashville, Atlanta, London and Toronto. Think of it as a rental service that lets you rent cars of all types per hour. It is for people who do not own a car (either by choice or necessity), but still have a chance for shopping, trips to see relatives, travel or anything else.

For approximately between $ 7 and $ 12 per hour, depending on the car that Zipcar covers gas, insurance, parking and the most miles. All you have to worry about is an annual fee of about $ 75 and show up to take the car for a spin. I've been a Zipcar user (or, if Zipcar keeps us call a "Zipster") for over two years and saved thousands of dollars just on insurance and maintenance alone since 2004, selling my VW Passat. It is also very useful for conveying messages when I travel for work, because I am a car in San Francisco as fast as I could to get home-office rent and no annoying paperwork.

From the perspective client, it works like this: I make a reservation by internet or by phone (of course, I prefer the Internet, either on my computer or mobile site). I can book weeks in advance or right at this very moment, depending on which cars are available. The website will give me the cars that are currently open and where I can find where I live now, there are tons to choose in some quarters of the BMW Mini, Mazda 3S, Volvo S40s, pick - up Toyota trucks and everything else.

After making the reservation, I walk to the car of my choice and my golf Zipcard over a sensor on the windshield. The car unlocks and I get the key, which is attached to the dashboard, and I go away. When I returned the car, I wave my card back and the car locks. The company bills the reservation directly to the card I file.

The technology behind

I spoke to Zipcar CTO Luke Schneider for more information about the inner workings of this system to learn how the car knows the right person that I show up at the right time? Schneider stated that it requires a mix of wireless technologies and the hardware to function. All cars are equipped with a "black box" of species-Zipcar own design that connects three major systems in the car: the ignition, the lock circuit and serial data coming from different sources within the vehicle. The black box also contains a wireless modem that communicates via the GSM network (actually, the GPRS-old, slow cell data protocol that 3G and EDGE dates).

If a reservation is made on the Internet, a packet is sent via GSM to the chosen vehicle and stored in a ring buffer until the driver appears with his or her Zipcard, which is equipped with an RFID chip. The card reader mounted in the windshield reads the RFID signature to authenticate the holder of the card and sends the message to the computer in the car. From there, the computer asks three questions: Am I the right car? Is it the right time? Is this the right driver?

If all answers affirmatively, the car unlocked and the driver gets in. At that time, an immobilizer also so free that the engine can start. Without this verification step, the inflammation can not work, "If someone hits a window and tries to take the car, they can not, because the Mobilizer circuit would not be," Schneider explained. (Good to know.)

When the iPhone app is in

The Demoed at WWDC iPhone app basically combines the mobile version of the website with the Zipcar Zipcard functionality. Not only can users search the neighborhood (or wherever) to find cars, they can read details about the cars, to make reservations, see the maps, and, once a reservation is made, unlocking the car directly from the phone. And for those parking their cars on easy (* cough *), users can even Honk the car away.

The app is still not available, and Schneider could not tell me if we could get our hands on. "Soon!" he urged. "The reality is that the app is in pretty good shape, but there are some things beyond our control the exact release date to be fixed." Translation: the continued stabbing in a holding pattern for Apple approval who knows how long.

But pretend for a moment that the iPhone app and that people can use. "The iPhone is really a surrogate for the Zipcard," Schneider said, explaining that it sends the same signals to the car to unlock the Zipcard would, except the phone. "Depending on where the car is, we leverage two different technologies. A short distance wireless and the other is the GSM network if the Zipcard would." Schneider did not elaborate on the "short-distance wireless" part of the equation as it is apparently proprietary technology, though he summed up the experience as "virtual remote keyless entry" (imagine the keychain remote that comes with most modern cars and sets form in the software that communicates via GSM).

Are there any other smart phones will get no love?

This led us to our next question: why the iPhone, and if other smart phones will get in on the action?

"The iPhone is a natural idea that flowed from what research we had done earlier in the year," Schneider out. "Fifty percent of our members own a smartphone, and half of smartphone users have iPhones. As a consumer brand, it was a clear and logical decision to go with the first iPhone."

He then went on to say that the company is certainly looking for other mobile platforms, but it depends on where the membership is Zipcar. "If what they tell us is that the BlackBerry is the most important, we will listen just as we did before," said Schneider.

Schneider believes that part of the Zipcar philosophy is simple, and the company is constantly working to remove any discontinuities in the experience (such as searching for your Zipcard when you have your phone on you). "It's all about mobile right now," said Schneider. He hinted that many more to come "additional functionality such as location-based services and cloud computing, but refused to give away the goods for the moment. Waiting cloud computing? Schneider reassured me with a cryptic closing message:" The No matter what we do, the members always benefit. "