Just before noon on a bright spring semester day, Nicholas Garrett, a senior majoring in communications at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, slid behind the wheel of a car parked on Varney Circle in the heart of campus.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked classmate Gabrielle Pangilinan.

"Oh, I was thinking 21, Urban Outfitters and maybe a stop at CPK," the fashion merchandising major replied with a happy laugh and a toss of her long black hair.

At UH-Manoa, where parking is notoriously scarce, how did these students score a central parking space?

The parking actually comes with the car, a Chevy Volt hybrid in Enterprise CarShare’s four-vehicle campus fleet. (CarShare is part of Enterprise Holdings, of which Enterprise Rent-A-Car is a subsidiary.) While called car sharing, what Enterprise offers members is a by-the-hour rental program with insurance and gas included in the $5 per hour rental fee, which will increase to $10 on April 1. Daily rentals are $70 and the $35 annual nonstudent membership fee is free through the end of the month.

Garrett and Pangilinan are new members who joined for $1 in a promotion for college students at the recommendation of Justin Limasa, a junior majoring in business who joined last year. The three are colleagues in the advertising department of Ka Leo, the student body newspaper, and all are 21 years old, the minimum age for Enterprise CarShare members, who must also have a valid driver’s license.

Limasa had reserved the Volt a few minutes before on his smartphone with the Enterprise CarShare app. The car unlocks with a wave of a membership card and the key is in the glove compartment.

"It’s really awesome," Limasa said of his Enterprise CarShare experience so far.

He’s also a frequent user of Lyft and Uber, which have phone apps matching riders with independent drivers who pick them up and drop them off for less than what a taxi would charge. "Lyft and Uber are especially great for ride sharing when you’re going out drinking with friends and nobody should drive," he said.

National car-sharing services of all kinds have gained traction in Hawaii in the past year.

Car2go, which operates like Enterprise CarShare, is "very interested" in Hono­lulu but has no confirmed plans to operate here, according to spokesperson Adrianne Andang.

Since last year, "matchmaker" services Lyft and Uber have proved so popular that bills seeking to regulate ride shares, or ride-hailing, in the same way as the taxi industry were introduced in the state Legislature this year.

Oahu car owners can also rent out their vehicles by listing them through relayrides.com.

And, of course, there’s always plain old carpooling, for which Honolulu ranked fifth for high use among U.S. cities with at least 50,000 commuters, according to a 2014 U.S. Census Bureau study. Hilo ranked eighth and Kahului-Wailuku 11th.

The principal inducement to share rides is to reduce costs, especially in Hawaii where the cost of living is high in proportion to household income, and where a relatively small population in which "everybody knows everybody" builds feelings of trust, said Brian Gibson, executive director of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, which coordinates state and city traffic planning.

Broader benefits of car sharing include reduced traffic congestion and cleaner air. According to a study by City Car Share, a nonprofit service matching up passengers and private drivers in San Francisco and the East Bay, its ride sharing program prevented the release of 294 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and saved 138 million vehicle miles and 13.3 million gallons of gas between 2001 and 2012.

Since the Enterprise program rolled out in Honolulu last autumn, cars emblazoned with its green CarShare logo are being seen all over town. In addition to UH-Manoa, the company has pickup/drop-off sites at Hawaii Pacific University’s Windward campus, Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe, downtown and in Waikiki.

For student members at UH-Manoa and HPU, not having to search and pay for parking is a plus. At least twice a week, Limasa takes out a car to go shopping or make sales calls for Ka Leo advertising, often sharing and splitting the cost with two to three other students.

It might come as a surprise to some that he does this even though he owns his own car and drives it to school.

The reason, Limasa explained, is that he parks off campus, "and once you get a space in a neighborhood, you can’t leave or you’ll lose it."

Parking on campus is extremely limited. With a total enrollment of 18,283 students for the spring semester and 5,114 employees at last count, there are an average of 20,000 people on the Manoa campus on any given day that classes are in session, according to UH spokesman Daniel Meisenzahl. There are a total of 6,300 parking stalls and 6,577 parking permits, 200 of which are reserved for student housing and 3,500 for UH employees.

"Even if you commute to school in your own car, it’s much more affordable in terms of time and money to rent a car by the hour when you need one during the day," Limasa said.

He said he also likes the ready availability of the cars. "You can usually get one of the four cars if you reserve 15 to 30 minutes in advance. I just check the app to find out if the car and place I want are available right before I need it," he said.

That may change as more of the UH population signs up. There are currently 175 campus members, said Branden Kamealoha, who works in the Enterprise CarShare Division there. Kame­aloha does a safety check of each vehicle twice a week and had just completed inspecting the Volt.

Since it opened car sharing to the general public in September, Enterprise CarShare now has 500 members on Oahu, said Joslyn Bantilan, business rental sales executive at Enterprise Holdings. The company’s first car-sharing service here started in 2012 for students, faculty or military members only.

In addition to saving money and time and providing safer schlepping to carless students who otherwise bike or skateboard to do grocery shopping, Limasa said he’s observed that ride sharing brings people together.

"Ride sharing is a social enhancement — it creates community. You meet different people as well as people with common interests like UH athletics … or bars," he said.

Case in point: As they planned their errands at Varney Circle, Garrett and Pangilinan remembered a foreign student friend’s request for an upcoming university event.

"What about the turkey dinner she wanted to cook for cultural food day?" Garrett asked.

"Oh, you’re right — that means Red Ribbon (Bakeshop) or Don Quijote," Pangilinan said.

Ride sharing is here to stay, and the network and possibilities are growing.