Hundreds of businesses are adding car rental clubs to their travel policies to meet growing demand for business travel as employees return to work.

On-street car clubs are increasingly a mainstream option for UK businesses and can help with introducing drivers to EVs

The switch to hybrid or home working is actually driving demand for greater mobility for workers, according to Enterprise – and as a result, on-street car clubs are increasingly a mainstream option for UK businesses.

Paul McCorkell, director of business rental UK & Ireland, commented: “Automated rental through an on-street car club is becoming an important form of vehicle hire, especially for businesses transitioning the workplace to a hybrid working model. It means that we can deliver mobility to employees in even more locations and out of hours, through what might have previously been seen as solely a residential solution.”

Enterprise has responded to this increasingly regionalised demand with integrated in-branch technology that geolocates vehicles in real time and provides every branch with visibility of both daily rental and car club availability across the fleet.

This means in-branch employees can advise business customers when a car club vehicle is the most suitable choice for a business trip based on their location – especially for last-minute bookings.

And Enterprise’s ETD booking and compliance platform enables businesses to ‘default’ certain employees to a local car club vehicle when that is the closest, most convenient and most sustainable option. Setting up employees as car club members is also simple and Enterprise has cut the administration for businesses.

Meanwhile, the firm’s flexible car club technology means employees can book personal trips on the Enterprise Car Club app outside working hours. There is no fee for business membership of the programme, and users only pay when they are renting a vehicle.

Such a move towards automated rental is helping to reduce delivery, collection and mileage costs for many business renters, according to Enterprise, which runs  1,400+ on-street vehicles, available 24/7 in towns and cities around the UK.

Paul McCorkell added: “Rental on demand brings several benefits. It enables customers to access a much wider range and number of cars and vans in their local area. It reduces collection and delivery charges because vehicles are close to where the employee lives or works, and lowers their carbon footprint.

“And because many of our car club vehicles are low- or zero-emission plug-in electric vehicles, companies can start to introduce employees to EVs quickly and conveniently, getting them accustomed to what will soon be the future of motoring.”