In the two and a half years since Bath & North-East Somerset Council adopted a car sharing model, it has reduced its CO2 emissions by 11.7 tonnes. The council partnered with E-Car Club, part of the Ubeeqo car sharing service, to provide staff with a low cost, sustainable transport solution and shift its dependency onto electric vehicles.
Over 400 members have registered since the scheme went live, making over 6,800 bookings and covering 199,585 miles. Initially starting out with fifteen vehicles managed by E-Car Club, there are now five electric vehicles as well as a number of other low emission hybrid cars, making the car club model a key proponent of the council’s Improving How We Work programme.
Anthony Meehan, Bath & North-East Somerset Council Corporate Sustainability Officer, commented: “In little more than the two years we have been in partnership with E-Car, nearly 200,000 miles have been transferred from grey fleet to safer and low emission pool cars, with 39,000 miles of those in zero emission electric vehicles.
“We also believe we have achieved revenue savings by having access to more accurate trip data, enabling us to remove some car trips altogether.”
The E-Car solution tackles a number of issues including traffic congestion, improving air quality, limited parking availability, reducing council business miles and staff driving private vehicles.
Following the scheme’s launch, E-Car ran a series of promotional sessions in partnership with the council, aimed at introducing members of staff to the programme. These sessions proved to be popular and provided staff with a guide on how to sign up and book the vehicles, use the cars efficiently, access the vehicles, and ask questions.
Another important facet of the scheme is the accessibility to low emission driving it is giving to the local community. As the scheme is now well established, all sixteen vehicles, including the five electric cars, have been made available for the public to book and use in evenings, outside of business hours and on weekends.
Patrick Cresswell, Managing Director, Ubeeqo UK commented: “E-Car’s partnership with Bath & North-East Council is a story of growing success. With more council members signing up each month, we are proud to facilitate this transition to a more sustainable, lower costing form of transport. We view this as just a start to sustainable transport in the area and are excited to see how members of the public respond to the scheme being made available to them.”
SOURCE: Europcar Mobility Group
