The City of Houston Expands Its Shared Motor Pool Program, FleetShare

BOSTON, Sept. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Zipcar, Inc., the world's leading car sharing network and the City of Houston Fleet Management Department have announced that Houston's FleetShare program has expanded to its second location. The program first launched with shared pool vehicles in the Theater District's Tranquility Garage and has recently expanded to the City Hall Annex Garage.

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In July 2012, the City of Houston launched a new municipal fleet sharing program called Houston FleetShare with partner Zipcar.  Through this program, 50 City-owned fleet vehicles – including 25 Nissan Leaf electric vehicles (EVs) and other plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles – were outfitted with Zipcar's proprietary car sharing technology, FastFleet, for use by city employees across numerous departments.

"Zipcar is very excited to continue our successful relationship with the City of Houston to bring vehicle sharing efficiencies to City employees." said Michael Serafino, Zipcar Vice President of Sales and Market Development.

Six electric vehicle charging stations were installed in the City Hall Annex Garage allowing for both EVs and hybrid vehicles to be made available at this location. The expansion of the program to the City Hall Annex is the result of a 72% increase of enrolled participants, representing over 7,000 reservations. This move to a large shared pool of City vehicles will also maximize the efficiency of City resources.

"Small individual pools of vehicles have a lot of down time and then tend to be needed all at once," said Jedediah Greenfield, Fleets' public information officer. "With a larger shared city vehicle pool, we can ensure our vehicles are being used efficiently through closely monitoring utilization and streamlining their operation which ultimately serves the needs of our citizens."

About Zipcar
Zipcar, the world's leading car sharing network, has operations in urban areas and college campuses throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain and Austria. Zipcar offers more than 30 makes and models of self-service vehicles by the hour or day to residents and businesses looking for smart, simple and convenient solutions to their urban and campus transportation needs. Zipcar is a subsidiary of Avis Budget Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: CAR), a leading global provider of vehicle rental services. More information is available at www.zipcar.com. 

About Zipcar's FastFleet® Technology
FastFleet is Zipcar's proprietary car sharing technology that enables fleet managers to save money, reduce risk and promote sustainability by leveraging the same technology that powers Zipcar's consumer fleet. The FastFleet program empowers client fleet administrators to determine the numbers, types and locations of vehicles, which are then equipped with Zipcar's in-vehicle technology, wirelessly linking them to a dedicated server. Utilizing FastFleet technology makes reserving and driving a vehicle a seamless process for employees, while providing significant benefits to fleet managers as well.  More information is available at www.fastfleet.net.

SOURCE Zipcar