The car hire shortage is likely to continue, with fleets advised to ensure their supplier has a strategy to prioritise corporate clients during peak demand periods.

Rental companies have reduced their fleet sizes, resulting in fewer vehicles with which to meet any bottlenecks in demand.

“Demand for rental vehicles is growing,” said John Lewis, BVRLA chief executive. “Rental companies set their fleets so that they can meet demand but don’t have lots of cars sitting around waiting for customers.”

However, some have set their rental fleet numbers so low that they cannot meet peaks in demand. This lack of capacity was highlighted in February when a lull in the extreme weather caused a spike in demand.

“The entire vehicle hire industry experienced unprecedented demand over the past couple of months,” said David Alexander, operations director Europcar UK Group. “The very nature of daily rental is to meet short-term demand and vehicle hire firms should have the resources to cope.”

Rob Ingram, director of business rental at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, said: “The snow and icy conditions drove huge demand for replacement vehicles, well above any seasonal norm, that simply could not be predicted.”

Europcar, Thrifty and Enterprise all say they have sufficient fleet levels to meet demand.
But, as Ingram explains, decisive action has been needed. “We own the majority of our fleet, which provides a great degree of scaleability and during this period gave us the flexibility to delay scheduled de-fleeting,” he said.

“We brought forward a proportion of our quarter-one fleet buy and placed a temporary halt on new retail reservations in order to minimise the availability impact on our long-term corporate customers.”

Fleets are advised to ask their rental supplier what processes they have to manage peak demand.

Alliance Asset Management said it answered ‘cries for help’ from fleets in record numbers as they looked for help in finding rental vehicles during the recent poor weather.

Tim Buchan, Zenith Provecta chief operating officer, said: “The solution for fleets, if they are experiencing supply problems at any time of year, is to seek a provider with access to more than one mainstream supplier.”