A blended car club and car sharing solution that could make better use of the 36 million ‘empty’ car seats on the daily commute has been launched by Enterprise Car Club and Liftshare in the UK.

Enterprise Car Club and Liftshare say the shared asset model will dramatically improve access to shared vehicles for both car club members and business users

Already being offered to private and public sector organisations, the car sharing offer has been developed by the firms to dramatically improve access to shared vehicles for both car club members and business users.

It works on a ‘Shared Asset Model’ (SAM) premise whereby an Enterprise Car Club vehicle is driven to work, shared with a colleague (or colleagues). During the day the car is then available for use either by employees for company travel, removing the need for them to use their own vehicle, or can be offered out to the general public as an Enterprise Car Club vehicle on a pay-as-you-go basis.

To further increase utilisation, the vehicle would also be available on the Enterprise scheme at weekends and evenings.

According to the firms, the new mobility model could tackle those instances where public transport is unable to offer a solution to commuting, identified by Liftshare and its Scoping Smart Mobility technology.

Key benefits would be a dramatic reduction in the number of single-occupancy vehicles, cutting congestion, emissions and even car parking spaces required at businesses. Clients could also benefit from a revenue share derived from commuter journeys.

The partnership will utilise Liftshare’s Trip Authentication and Smart Parking technologies to ensure the people parking in allocated sharing bays are genuine sharers, allowing easy management of the car park by an organisation’s facilities team.

Oz Choudhri, head of MaaS, Enterprise Rent-A-Car UK Ltd, said: “Enabling people to share vehicles for their daily commute will play a big role in improving air quality and reducing congestion. By combining the strength of our growing national Car Club fleet with the exciting technology of Liftshare and working with progressive organisations, we can make this ambition a reality.”

CEO and founder of Liftshare, Ali Clabburn, added “We’re delighted to be working with fellow forward-thinking global mobility leaders, Enterprise. Their Car Club offering aims to make it the best use of resources, and our collaboration makes it much easier for those assets to be shared, thus increasing the efficiency further.

“Our focus on improving the commute and reducing the amount of single-occupancy vehicles can be accelerated when we work with partners like Enterprise and the milestone of saving one billion miles becomes even more achievable.”