According to the latest research from the Corporate Vehicle Observatory, over the next three years we are likely to see an increasing appetite for car sharing emerging. The report, which surveyed almost 3500 fleet decision makers in 14 countries, revealed that in the UK 43% of larger organisations would be encouraging vehicle sharing to reduce costs and the carbon footprint. This is significantly higher than the other countries who took part in the survey as only 27% of overseas respondent larger companies are considering a sharing policy.
This is hardly surprising as businesses are increasingly looking at how to make their fleets more efficient. There is no doubt that one way to do that is to eliminate unnecessary or duplicated journeys. New car clubs and websites that have been launched are making it much easier to set up car sharing initiatives.
One of the simplest ways to start is to make sure your fleet policy doesn’t encourage people to take multiple vehicles to meetings. For example, how often do two people for your organisation go to a meeting at the same place in different vehicles? It’s not always possible to share a vehicle but companies should encourage and incentivise employees to do this where possible. Providing an organisation can monitor mileage effectively they can actually reimburse employees an extra 5p per mile for fuel that’s free from tax if they are sharing a business journey.
Looking at car sharing is just one way that companies are looking to make efficiency savings. Other areas are better journey planning, cutting out unnecessary trips, using fuel cards and better use of teleconferencing and videoconferencing.
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