It's not news that running a car in a city can be complicated and expensive, with issues such as congestion charges and a lack of parking spaces to contend with. On top of that, inner-city businesses are often much better served by public transport than those elsewhere, meaning that staff making journeys have viable alternatives to driving. With this in mind, does it really make sense for these businesses to run a full-time fleet. If they were instead able to use a car sharing service, with staff just jumping into a car as and when they needed it, and the cost and hassle of running the cars taken care of by someone else, would that be a better solution?

Flexible working

Jonathan Hampson, general manager of Zipcar UK, believes an increasing number of firms will soon be answering "yes" to that question. They won't be alone, as Zipcar, which has a UK fleet of 2,500 vehicles, is already being used by more than 10,000 businesses in London. With a presence also  in Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge, Maidstone, Edinburgh and Glasgow, Hampson says the firm has seen strong growth, with people now more willing to consider car sharing than ever before.

Speaking to BusinessCar at the firm's office in central London, Hampson says car sharing has started to break into the mainstream. "I think a lot of it is because people are starting to get used to the sharing economy and it's just become far more accepted that you don't need to own things to have the benefit of them," he says.

"I think the other reason is because it's becoming increasingly difficult to own a car in the city, whether it be increasingly expensive congestion charging or parking permits - everything is really going against the private car owner."

"There's huge, huge thirst for electrification among our stakeholders."

Hampson says Zipcar has taken advantage of what he calls a "fairly miserable experience" for city-based car owners. "From our perspective, if we can put out a service that says you can have all the benefits of being able to use a car when you need one, without that cost and hassle, then that's going to be compelling, and that's exactly what we're seeing," he explains.

 Hampson admits that Zipcar first started with a focus on consumers, but says it didn't take the firm long to realise that what it was offering made sense for a lot of business users, too.

"I think the largest area for us is SMEs, small businesses that don't want to be tied into their own vehicles, or into long rental agreements and things like that, but still want to have a vehicle from time to time. 

"Using Zipcar to meet those needs on an incredibly flexible basis is a really powerful thing for them."

Hampson says that for these businesses, car sharing can save a lot of money. 

"We can be a resource that they can scale up or scale down, and in doing so we can be very cost advantageous for them.

"We can offer an alternative to running their own fleet, a fixed asset that they need to maintain and look after, that depreciates heavily, and there's all the admin that goes along with that. 

"If they can say, 'Actually, we'll just use Zipcar for our fleet when we need it, those vehicles are there anyway, they'll look after all those things that are a hassle, we can scale it up or scale it down, exactly as we need it,' that's a very beneficial thing for businesses, particularly smaller ones that really don't want to be tied into long agreements or large costs, but do really value that flexibility."

Zipcar offers a dedicated business service, with features including online account management overseeing multiple drivers, and dedicated fleet solutions for businesses nationally, from SMEs to larger corporates, as well as fleet management solutions through its Local Motion system.

Fuelled for the future

One advantage drivers might have with Zipcar over a conventional fleet is the knowledge that the vehicle they're driving will always be new or almost new, with cars replaced after about 15 months. Hampson explains that this allows the company to continually provide drivers with the latest technology, and also allows a quick reaction to market trends. One notable recent example is the backlash from cities against diesel cars, which are now gone from the Zipcar fleet.