Boston city workers share cars across departments
Boston has set up a fleet sharing program for its employees called FleetHub. In the setup, fleet managers have combined vehicles formerly dedicated to city departments and created an interdepartmental fleet. The city is working with Cambridge, Mass.-based Zipcar, a for-profit car sharing service, in the effort.
Through the program, Zipcar will outfit a number of existing city-owned fleet vehicles with its car-sharing technology. And, the city will implement Zipcar’s self-service online reservation and secure vehicle access system.
The program is designed to help the city improve efficiency, promote sustainability, save money and modernize its fleet without sacrificing employee mobility. The program will enable the city dispose of older, under-used vehicles and modernize the city’s fleet with alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles. It also allows the city to reduce the environmental and fiscal impacts of operating dedicated departmental fleets.
“Boston is always looking for ways to be more green — both in saving money and saving energy. This partnership with Zipcar helps us do both,” Mayor Thomas Menino said. “It will modernize the city’s fleet, allowing us to reduce costs and operate more efficiently, providing fuel-efficient vehicles as well as the technology to maintain a convenient, web-based system for use by city employees.”
Boston chose Zipcar as its fleet technology provider through a competitive bidding process. The program will be launched as a six-month pilot, which the city plans to extend to more vehicles following successful implementation.
By using Zipcar technology, Boston will be able to design and configure its fleet footprint in real time for optimal use; manage hundreds of activities, including preventive maintenance, fueling, billing and fleet distribution; analyze use and diagnostic data that is automatically captured during each trip; and use Zipcar’s experience-driven analytics to maintain control of its fleet.
Zipcar’s technology has been adopted through similar initiatives in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
