Grey fleet needs are starting to be met by use of medium-term rental by some businesses, according to one of the sector’s suppliers.

Meridian Vehicle Solutions says that it has seen an emerging trend in recent where fleets use the rental solution, which normally operates from 3-12 months, to create what is effectively a short term pool car solution.

Phil Jerome, managing director, at explained: “A lot of fleets have a general dislike of using grey fleet and for good reasons. It is always difficult to ensure that your risk management obligations are being met with someone else’s usually older vehicle.

“Ideally, these organisations would like to run a pool fleet but can’t really justify the ongoing expense. However, they may have periods when they know that there will be demand for a vehicle and, in these situations, are using medium-term rental as a solution.”

He said that medium-term rental cars were usually delivered new from the dealer and so had a clean bill of health from a risk management point of view.

“These medium-term pool cars remove all of your risk management worries at a stroke and allow you to take control in a way that is just not possible with grey fleet,” he continued.

“We can even provide additional services such as car inspections and the fitting of trackers in order to make car use as transparent as possible.

“Also, this is a solution that makes a lot of financial sense. It removes the long term obligation of a normal pool car and, instead, you will be able to make a calculation based on likely use over 3-6 months – one that will almost certainly show the medium-term rental to be the cheaper option.

“Certainly, this is something that we are seeing fleets starting to do more and more, especially in medium-sized companies. We also believe that there is likely to be a demand for this kind of provision in the public sector.”

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