The Dutch utility Cogas introduced the corporate car sharing solution fleetster in August 2013 to manage a pool of nine cars. “We were facing the decision of either acquiring new cars or optimizing the utilization of the existing fleet,” explained Bert Liezen of Cogas. The company, which is headquartered in the Dutch region Overijssel, includes electric, hybrid-electric, natural gas, and diesel vehicles. Nevertheless, the specific costs and driving ranges vary significantly for the various car types, according to the company.

The fleetster software has optimized the operating costs of Cogas’ vehicle fleet, and the calculated mid-term cost-reduction potential of more than 25 percent, and optimizing the utilization of the fleet’s electric car.

Since August 2013, all rides are booked beforehand with fleetster. Before the introduction of fleetster the utilization of the company’s electric car was critical. Users had to deal with issues such as charging behavior, charging duration, and real driving ranges. As a result the electric car was rarely booked, even though it has the lowest operating costs. Using fleetster solution, the fleet increased its utilization considerably.

The solution contains a proprietary database with fleet-relevant information about all available electric cars. The database was developed in close cooperation with TÜV Süd. Each time a user wants to book an electric car, fleetster accesses this data in order to determine whether the vehicle will have enough electricity left for an additional ride. Currently more than 9 percent of all requests are for the electric car is used at Cogas. Based on utilization analysis fleester has calculated that a total of 36 percent of all requests could be for the electric vehicle.