Leasedrive Velo Blog

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

As the person responsible for launching the very first commercial car club, the Budget City Car Club in Edinburgh, I was hugely disappointed to read that the Department for Transport had decided not to back a proposal that would have seen the nationwide roll-out of car clubs in major urban areas.

The Budget Rent a Car initiative, launched in 1999, was in many ways ahead of its time. The project, operated in conjunction with Edinburgh City Council, received nationwide publicity and positive reaction from users.

In 2000, it won the Fleet News ‘Environmental Initiative of the Year Award.’ Since then we have seen various similar follow-up initiatives introduced, with widespread success.

However, all these car clubs run independently at a local level. To have had a car club operating at a national level would really have captured the imagination of businesses and the public alike. The fact is that those living in towns and cities do not necessarily need to own a car. Weighed up against the cost of ownership and the difficulty of finding adequate parking, the car club scheme represents a very viable alternative to car ownership. Many car clubs allow members to rent for as little as an hour.
Having worked in car rental, as well as contract hire, for the vast majority of my working life, I have always held the belief that vehicle rental, either short-term, medium-term or long-term, can be for some, especially city centre residents, a better solution to car ownership.

The advent of the car clubs puts the icing on the cake by allowing those persons, who have made the deliberate decision to forgo ownership of their own form of transport, to still avail themselves of a vehicle for an hour or two.

The environmental benefits of car club schemes are really only now being truly appreciated. Generally, the vehicles operated by car clubs are low emission vehicles, they are modern and therefore feature the latest drive train technology, they relieve pressure on parking spaces and overall congestion in urban areas.

DfT’s decision has been met with widespread criticism.

We are still waiting for the publication of an integrated transport policy from Government and all transport experts share the belief that car clubs form an important part of any such policy initiative.

Bike hire by the hour is the latest craze being championed.

National vehicle hire by the hour, through a properly administered and policed car club scheme, should be equally championed.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

We all know is that there is no panacea for our green transport problems. Solutions will come from a variety of different sources from use of lightweight materials, even better engineered internal combustion engines, more refined fuels, bio-fuels, hybrids, etc.

And one option gaining increased favour is the electric vehicle. With fuel cell technology improving the possibility of wider take-up of this solution, we are hearing of more trials taking place.

The latest news is that Amey is trying out Smart electric cars in Birmingham, Oxford and Plymouth. This comes hot on the heels of an electric scooter being tested by Lothian and Borders Police in Edinburgh as a potential replacement for the patrol car.

One of the arguments against the electric vehicle is that you are replacing one kind of carbon footprint for another. If you charge an electric vehicle, you need to extract energy from the national grid, which means burning fossil fuels at local power stations.

Research conducted on behalf of the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Transport has now placed a green cost on recharging electric vehicles. According to the study, greenhouse gasses could be cut by as much as 40% even though there is reliance on burning fossil fuels to charge the electric vehicles.

The study by Arup and Cenex also indicates the national grid has sufficient capacity to handle the extra demand placed on it despite denials today by Government that in 10 years the lights could go out at regular intervals.

Furthermore, as charging would take place mostly overnight, drivers of electric vehicles would be taking advantage of off-peak electricity.

Last month, the Technology Strategy Board unveiled a £10m project, co-funded by the DfT, to pilot up to 100 low-carbon demonstration vehicles across the UK to promote electric and hybrid vehicles in real-life situations. The Board is also to invest a further £10m on the ‘electrification’ of road transport.

It would appear that fresh impetus has been given to promoting the take-up of electric vehicles, which undoubtedly are a good solution in urban areas. The only major drawback I see is one of silence. How will pedestrians avoid stepping out into the path of electric vehicles when for years now they have not had the familiarity of listening out for the local milk float? Technology will have to be deployed to make such vehicles better heard on the road.

One thing’s for sure, the rise in popularity of the electric vehicle will give new meaning to the ‘Plug and Go’ slogan!

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Great news from America today – they’ve elected their first black President. We’ll have to see what happens under Obama but he couldn’t do a worse job than Bush.

Many consider the Republican Party has moved the USA toward becoming a fascist state. Freedom of the individual, enshrined in their Bill of Rights and in democracies around the world, has been thrown out of the window. Just look at what is still happening at Guantanamo Bay, which has drawn international outcry. And I won’t even start going over old ground when it comes to the Bush’s administration track record on the environment. I doubt anyone has become a more reviled freely-elected leader still leading a ‘democracy’. Roll on January 20, 2009.

If you have any concerns over the move toward a fascist state in the USA, then don’t think the same could not happen over here. ‘Big Brother’ is a definite reality, as evidenced by more CCTV cameras per head of the population than any other country.

Bad news from the UK today – black boxes are all the rage. First, and in many ways more troubling, comes news that the Government is planning on introducing internet black boxes to collect data on every telephone call, e-mail and website visit made in this country. If that isn’t Big Brother on a massive scale, I don’t know what is!

Apparently, the black box technology will automatically store and retain raw data before transferring it to a giant central database controlled by the Government. The thought makes your hair stand on end! The whole thing comes under the title of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). Nothing impish about the project idea, I can assure you.

Second, and equally concerning from a fleet perspective, is the trialling of black boxes for road charging. Next year, four different organisations (BT and Trafficmaster among them) are to undertake road charging trials on behalf of Government in a £4m annual project being funded by the Department for Transport DfT). Those drivers undergoing the trials will have their vehicles fitted with black boxes, their journeys monitored and phantom accounts charged accordingly. The £1.30 charge per mile could be just around the corner.

The bad news from the UK is worrying on several counts. Government says it will enter into public consultation on the first count – the Communications Data Bill. Well, if you don’t want every single action, every single keystroke monitored then get on to your MP right now! Big Brother is upon us and apart from all the issues associated with loss of individual freedom comes the inevitable question of government’s atrocious record when it comes to loss of personal data. Let the spooks do their jobs, but not at the expense of the freedom of the individual, a sacrosanct right enshrined in every democratic constitution.

Government also assured us that it had abandoned the idea of road charging as unworkable. Now it has done a ‘U-turn’ and is embarking on road trails. As mentioned in numerous previous blogs, the Government track record on technology guarantees a monumental breakdown and inevitable traffic jam of complaints. Apparently, Government says it will monitor individual road journeys but will not record actual destination routes so as not to impinge on individual freedom. Oh yeah!

The planned vision is that every motorist will check their road charging account on the internet to see their monthly bill. So what happens to those who do not have internet access, or who are not conversant with its workings? What happens when you get a charge on your bill, which you don’t recognise? I’m sure that when you call up and state that you did not make that trip from Milton Keynes to Edinburgh on March 16 some DfT employee will point out that you drove out of Central Boulevard at 06.16 and arrived in Edinburgh at 11.02 and, by the way, your average speed was above the legal limit for the route taken so not only do you indeed owe £156.27 but here’s a £60 automatic fine and three penalty points.

George Orwell was nearer the mark than we ever thought possible when he wrote 1984. Just a few decades out!