City turns to eBay model to sell its used cars

By: Tom MacDonald

The city of Philadelphia announced this week it has removed close to 250 vehicles from the fleet. Those vehicles will soon be for sale on the internet.

By: Tom MacDonald
tmacdonald@whyy.org

The city of Philadelphia announced this week it has removed close to 250 vehicles from the fleet. Those vehicles will soon be for sale on the internet.

Transcript:
Philadelphia city Fleet Manager James Muller says to disposed of vehicles, the city used to have a sale with an auctioneer going to each vehicle and selling it in a traditional auction setting. Now in the age of the internet, the cars are sold online.

Muller: “You can go on that site, see the vehicles, a picture of the vehicle  a little explanation and description of the vehicle, the mileage and stuff and it goes up for auction and you go on like you are going on eBay and the highest bidder wins. Audience participation has broadened from what we used to do, one vehicle had almost two thousand people looking at it so it’s fantastic.”

If you need a backhoe, a farm tractor, or a retired police car, you can bid on the city vehicles by going to govdeals.com. Muller says the current city cars should be available at the site soon.