Mobility car-sharing company withdraws service from municipality

The Mobility car-sharing company has withdrawn from its location in Oberägeri as it services have been under-used. From now on, customers who wish to make use of car-sharing will have to go to Unterägeri.
 
For years locals have become accustomed to the familiar red vehicles on the Maienmatt car park in the municipality, but, as can be read from the company’s website, the service was suspended in the middle of September. While the head of communication at the company, Patrick Eigenmann, was not prepared to divulge precise figures, he admitted that the location had not been profitable for two and a half years.
 
It is in this regard that the municipality is bucking the trend, after all, in March this year the car-sharing cooperative was able to present positive figures, increasing its turnover in 2016 by 2.7% to CHF 76 million and luring as many as 4,400 new customers, bringing the total to 132,000, though only a few of them from Oberägeri.
 
Eigenmann went on to say that interest in the service in municipalities with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants was waning, such areas left with over capacity. Individually-owned cars remained very popular in such areas, not least bearing in mind how they were not served quite so well with public transport as more urban areas.
 
However, in general the company is happy with its business in the canton, with no further withdrawals planned.
 
Among the former clients of Mobility car sharing was the municipality itself, with employees making use of the service. Councillor Peter Staub of the CVP party thought the more remote geographical location of the municipality had much to do with the company’s decision to withdraw the service.