Great new main Zipcar site--love the options to sort by different types of car, though a note as to how Zipcar determines cars I use "most" (at all? recently? or what?) would be helpful for the curious.

One suggestion: how about adding a three-category rating to the parking space description on each car's location, ranking the spot "easy," "average," or "tricky"? It's a fact that, especially in Boston's alleys, some spots are easier to maneuver into than others. I _really_ wish I'd known ahead of time just how tight it is to get in or out of the St. Stephen street location near Symphony, for instance--it took my husband, a pretty experienced parker, a good five passes to get in while I stood outside directing. With two large SUVs on either side, an a building wall only 10 feet behind the spot, it was tricky indeed. It's a good thing I got out to give him directions, though, because I would never have been able to open the passenger side door upon leaving the car. As it is, he had just enough space to squeeze thinly out the driver's door. Other spots, such as the Braddock Park one in the South End, I'd rate average--it's not incredibly easy, but it's doable. A good example of an "easy" spot is Claremont Park--a nice, wide, pull-in with easy access. Zipcar could implement this in one of two ways, or a combination of these two methods: either Zipcar rates the spots themselves, or every time you use a car you have the opportunity to rate the spot--just like you'd rate a book on Amazon, for instance. People could even leave comments, like, "Fine in good weather, but no way am I going down this pot-hole-y, unpaved alley when it's wet!" about the Braddock Park spot. Or, Zipcar could give spots an initial rating and then allow people to post and view other people's comments.

I'm a Zipcar member too, but my husband does most of the driving. That's good, because until I have some sort of rating system like this, the cars that I would attempt to remove from their spots are a tiny subset of cars that I've seen my husband drive and have no problems with. There are _many_ spots, such as St. Stephen, that there is no way I would attempt to get into--I would probably kill myself with nerves and die trying.

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2004

Answers

"Cars you use most" are cars you have used most often during your whole Zipcar life.

Rather than rate the locations (though I do like a member rating scheme), we are working to eliminate some of the difficult spots like St. Stephen. If we can find a nearby location which is better then we'll do that. In the case of St. Stephen, the Boston City Director has added another car to Symphony and is opening a new location at the Pru and will likely close St. Stephen location sometime in the next few months.

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2004

Number of separate reservations. It isn't actually the most frequently used cars, but the most frequently reserved from parking spots at locations. For example, you reserved Gianno from BU Medical frequently. Now Gianno has been retired and replace by Barcelona. While you've not yet reserved Barcelona, you did reserve the car that was in that spot a lot.

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2004

Okay, but "used most often" meaning number of separate reservations, number of hours, or total dollars? I just seem to be getting weird rankings, though it's not the biggest deal in the world.

-- Anonymous, August 12, 2004