Toronto’s free-floating car-sharing pilot presents first approved permit

Canada’s car-sharing company, Communauto, is the first to receive a permit under the City of Toronto’s new free-floating car-share pilot programme.

The service, Communauto FLEX, will launch in Toronto with 200 Hyundai Accent hatchbacks, servicing an area that will cover close to 50 square kilometres in the downtown core. The free-floating parking zone will span to High Park and Runnymede in the west, Dupont and Danforth in the north, and Victoria Park in the east. Metered parking spaces and Green P lots will be excluded from the service area at launch.

If the pilot project is approved after the first 18 months of operations, Communauto FLEX will expand to have more than 500 cars on the road and will grow its service area to cover 100 square kilometres, serving residents up to Eglinton Ave.

“Car-sharing technologies have the power to change how people go about their day-to-day lives and get around this city. I’ve encouraged the introduction of these new technologies and believe that there can be many benefits, including potentially reducing traffic and congestion by removing cars from the road,” said Mayor John Tory. “We’ve worked to strike a balance between the benefits of car-sharing and the potential impacts it could have on neighbourhoods.”

The free-floating car-share pilot, approved by the City of Toronto in April 2018, allows members to take one-way trips that have a different location at the beginning and end. Drivers can now pick up and drop off cars in legal residential parking spaces throughout the city, rather than being confined to a fixed location.

Communauto FLEX has no monthly fees and is free to join, using a pay-as-you-go structure, with daily trips beginning at $0.41 per minute. The first 150km is included in the price of each trip. During the launch, users will receive the first 30 minutes of each trip free for one month after joining.

“As a Canadian company, we’re proud to be the first to bring a free-floating car service to Toronto under this pilot. Our FLEX service will make car-sharing easy and affordable for city residents, and our goal is to work together with Toronto’s existing transit options to provide better solutions to mobility issues,” said Benoit Robert, Communauto President. “Car-sharing offers a number of social and environmental benefits to individuals and businesses and we’re looking forward to working with the city, our users and other community partners to create thriving mobility solutions.”