Students have another way to travel around Fort Worth and to other cities, thanks to the new Zipcars on campus.

Zipcars are rental cars students, faculty and staff can reserve for time periods ranging from an hour to four days, Zipcar liaison and graduate student Kyle Arnold said. The cars can be reserved online after a registration and approval process. You can also check out tampa limo services

Arnold said the university currently has two Zipcars available for use: a Ford Focus and a Honda Civic. The cars are located on North Drive in specially reserved parking spaces.

When students register for a membership through Zipcar, they’ll pay a special first year membership price of $25. The membership fee will increase to $35 in following years, Arnold said. 

After the membership application is complete, a driving record check is run.  According to Zipcar’s website, 94 percent of record checks are approved in less than 24 hours. After the driving record is approved, students just have to wait for their membership card, called a Zipcard, to arrive in the mail.

Once a student’s membership card has arrived, he or she can reserve a car online. The membership card will serve as the key to unlock and lock the car during the student’s reserved time slot, according to Zipcar’s website. 

“I think this is a great service and I really believe in the program,” Arnold said. “It’s a great solution for students who are debating to bring cars to campus or not.”

Each Zipcar reservation comes with a 180-mile per day limit. Once that limit is reached, a fee is charged per mile, Arnold said. Gas and insurance are included in the daily fees.

Students must be at least 18 years old to join and use Zipcars. Members who are 18 to 21 years old can also utilize Zipcars on the SMU and UTD campuses, Arnold said. Members who are over 21 can access any Zipcar around the world, whether it is from a university or a city.

The Student Government Association is responsible for bringing Zipcars to campus this year. SGA president Brent Folan said that since he didn’t bring a car to campus his freshman year, he understood the difficulties some students face.

“When I ran for president, I promised a website for students to go to and get carpooling options,” Folan said. “While looking for that website, we came across Zipcars.  We liked the idea so we did some work over the summer to bring them here. I like it because you can sign up online and take a car for the day or weekend.  How cool is that?”

The official campus launch of Zipcars took place on Oct. 3. A Zipcar was parked outside the library and an information table was set up for students to visit between classes. Arnold said he received a lot of good interest and feedback from students at the event.

“Students seem to be really excited about it,” Arnold said. “I’ve seen very positive reactions from the people I’ve talked to and I anticipate way more student response going forward.”

For more information about Zipcars, visit zipcar.com. To sign up and get the special first year membership price, visit zipcar.com/tcu.