The city of Boston has been quietly running its own internal Zipcar service for city employees for the past three years that cuts back on the need for government-owned cars.
“We don’t want vehicles sitting; that helps nobody,” said Matt Bradley, a public works employee who helps oversee FleetHub. “There’s environmental advantages, there’s also advantages cost-wise. We don’t have to maintain as many vehicles.”
Using a private network built by Zipcar, city employees who need cars for official business can reserve a vehicle up to a year in advance for 24 hours. This lets departments who only need vehicles occasionally have access to them without dealing with costly maintenance or fueling the cars.
Some departments need vehicles reliably, but infrequently, Bradley said. The Assessing Department, for example, largely only needs city cars twice a year, he said.
City employees made more than 7,800 reservations in the past 12 months for FleetHub’s 31 vehicles. The cars are spread out across five locations, but can be shuffled to account for changes in demand.
The program replaced an antiquated motor pool managed by the public works department that tracked reservations with pen and paper, and required picking up a key at City Hall. Now, drivers make reservations online and use Zipcar’s technology to unlock their reserved car with a keycard.
The program went through a pilot period in 2012, and has been slowly expanding since then. The city says there are 436 drivers who reserve cars.
Still, FleetHub is a drop in the bucket when it comes to city vehicles. There are 1,081 cars in the central fleet, which does not include vehicles such as ambulances and school buses. The city is looking into outfitting medium- and heavy-duty vehicles with the technology, which would allow city departments to share box trucks or dump trucks.
The city’s central fleet has recently grown to include vehicles from more departments, but the number of cars has declined by 11 since 2012. The city says that is thanks in large part to FleetHub.
The city pays Zipcar to install its system in the cars, as well as a monthly fee for the service.
“Anytime you’re able to get vehicles off the road, that’s how you’re able to save money from a fleet standpoint,” Bradley said.
Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., have similar programs also powered by Zipcar.
