The city of Loveland, Colo. will soon reduce its fleet of vehicles through the implementation of a car sharing program, expected to save the city more than $300,000 annually, according to a release from the City.

A total of about 40 aging sedans, pickups and vans from the city fleet will be replaced by 15 shared vehicles leased from Enterprise Fleet Management and equipped with the same automated rental technology used in Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s car sharing program, WeCar by Enterprise. The city’s fleet management division identified a number of low-use vehicles driven less than 5,000 miles per year.

Drivers reserve cars online for a few hours or a few days and access vehicles from a parking place adjacent to the employee’s building. The driver swipes a special membership identification card across the windshield. The sensor recognizes the card, records the day and time, opens the door, and allows access to the car’s ignition key in the car’s interior.

When the driver returns the vehicle, they place the key inside the car, exit, and again swipes the card in front of the sensor. The sensor locks the car and records the duration and mileage of the use.

The system automatically charges the employee’s budget for the vehicle’s use based on time and/or mileage. The user’s departmental budget is charged accordingly and those monies are applied toward the car’s overall lease payment. The charge-back to the user will range from $25-60 per day depending on the type of vehicle used.

Enterprise Fleet Management is a full-service fleet management business for governmental entities and companies with medium-size fleets. The city of Loveland selected Enterprise because of its technical capability, experience, business and financial strength to establish, manage, develop and grow a shared motor pool program, the city release said.

“The program will enable greater and more efficient use of fewer vehicles,” said Steve Kibler, fleet manager for Loveland. “Our shared motor pool will enable us to reduce overhead, maintenance, and insurance expenses while providing safe, reliable, and fuel-efficient transportation for the City employees who use these vehicles. All maintenance and repairs are performed by Enterprise Fleet Management’s local independent contractors so no additional city personnel are needed to perform this overhead expense,” Kibler said.

Future expansion of the program to add hybrid and zero emission plug-in vehicles is likely. Kibler said the city is also looking to expand the technology to redundant construction equipment such as air compressors, backhoes, loaders, dump trucks, etc.

“In addition to having the purchasing power to obtain vehicles at the best possible prices and terms, the leasing agreement with Enterprise offers maintenance management, risk management, and vehicle registration and reporting, as well as a fuel card program that automatically monitors fuel purchases and mileage for each vehicle,” Kibler said.

Enterprise announced in May that the company will soon transition its car sharing companies, including recently acquired Mint Cars On-Demand, into one brand: Enterprise Car Share. Read more here.