Car rental operators make strides in car sharing

Enterprise Rent-A-Car and U-Haul are working together in promoting a car sharing program that involves hourly rental for corporate customers. Car sharing, up until now, has been most popular with urban residents who don’t own cars.

In addition to Enterprise, Hertz is considering a car sharing program for its corporate accounts, as well, which would allow employees of those companies to rent cars by the hour to attend customer meetings, and to run errands as well.

Enterprise has launched nine-month-long pilot project in car sharing, called WeCar, that is now available to some of its corporate customers, governmental agencies and universities around the country. U-Haul will also be marketing the program through its car-sharing unit, U Car Share, to its larger corporate customers.

Although the company did not release details of its program, Hertz confirmed that it will be launching a limited-scale car-sharing business by year end. Zipcar, which was the pioneer in the industry, currently dominates urban markets, and is also aggressively marketing to businesses.

Car sharing operates online making hourly rentals available to individuals and business who do not want to own cars. Basically, it requires an online registration and payment of an annual membership fee. Cars are reserved through the company’s website, from a designation spot – either in a city lot or parking garage, typically. The membership card that is issued is equipped with a smart chip that unlocks the door to the car, and the ignition key is kept in the glove compartment. Once the user is finished with the car it is returned to a designated parking spot.

www.enterprise.com