Enterprise Car Club and sharing economy pioneers, Liftshare, have today announced a partnership that will see the two collaborate on a new mobility model that will dramatically improve access to shared vehicles for both car club members and business users.

The partnership was unveiled at the CoMoUK conference in Birmingham.

The partnership will be the first real-world application of an innovative concept dubbed the “Shared Asset Model” (SAM) that means people can share a low emission Enterprise Car Club vehicle, reducing dependency on older, often higher polluting vehicles, and making better use of the 36 million "empty" car seats on the daily commute.

Liftshare and Enterprise are already speaking to a number of private and public sector organizations about introducing the Shared Asset Model.

SAM works on the principle that a 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 by the general public.

To further increase utilization, the vehicle is available as an Enterprise Car Club vehicle on a simple pay as you go tariff at weekends and evenings.

The introduction of a supplementary commuter mode (in this instance a brand-new car club vehicle) is a benefit to staff and communities alike where public transport is unable to fill the gaps identified by Liftshare and their Scoping Smart Mobility technology.

This means that vehicles which would have spent the majority of each day parked-up are replaced by fewer, more intensively used alternatives, delivering greater value for clients who use the scheme. A further client incentive is the option of a revenue share derived from commuter journeys in addition to the gains associated with taking single occupancy vehicles off an already congested road network.

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.