Review: Streetcar car rental scheme

Car sharing promises to reduce the environmental consequences of driving. We test Streetcar, the biggest car club in the capital

Streetcar is a self-service car rental scheme that allows members to book and use cars at short notice, with charges calculated by the half-hour. Although using a car is seldom a particularly green activity, there are times when public transport is just not suitable, and renting rather than buying helps to reduce the overall environmental impact. Streetcar even argues that every one of its vehicles supplants an average of 20 ordinary cars, because members typically use its vehicles when they would otherwise buy and run one of their own.

Streetcar is the biggest car club in the UK, but it is not the only option. Charity Carplus, which promotes car sharing, lists many rivals including WhizzGo, City Car Club, and ZipCar.

The environmental benefits of sharing are more pronounced if the cars themselves boast a low CO2 output, of course. Streetcar’s fleet is predominantly made up of Volkswagen Golf hatchbacks, plus 20 or so VW Transporter vans, but in September last year it began trialling 25 VW Polo BlueMotion superminis - one of the UK’s most fuel efficient cars.

The Streetcar service is a car club, so before you can book a car you must join, which costs £49.50 per year. Drivers must be aged between 21 and 75, have held a driving licence for at least 12 months, and have had no more than one accident in the past three years. “Partner memberships” for second drivers are half price. No deposit is required and membership includes breakdown cover and comprehensive insurance with a £500 excess. Cutting the excess in half costs £3.95 per month extra, removing it altogether costs £9.95 per month.

Membership applications can be made online, after which the company will call you back in a conference call with the DVLA, in order to verify the cleanliness of your licence. Fortunately this process went smoothly enough in our test. Streetcar says it will accept drivers with three to six penalty points and will review people with nine points on a case-by-case basis. However, it will reject membership applications from anyone with a drink-driving conviction or a record of driving without insurance.

Once vetted, members receive a smartcard in the post. This contactless card will unlock Streetcar vehicles when waved over a windscreen-mounted reader, providing the car has been booked in advance.

Bookings can be made online or over the phone, and the process of finding a nearby car is simple enough - providing you live close to one, of course.

Streetcar launched in London in April 2004 with just eight cars, but the scheme now boasts cars at over 500 sites. The vast majority are in London, but a handful of cars can be found in Brighton, Cambridge, Guildford and Southampton. The locations are not rental centres housing fleets of streetcars, but are often individual parking spaces or bays. Indeed, owners of suitable vacant lots and driveways are invited to offer them to Streetcar, in return for cash or car-rental hours.

In our test, we found five cars within half a mile of our Zone 2 East London address, and another five cars less than a mile away. We chose one of the Polo BlueMotion cars, parked about five minutes’ walk away. Streetcar’s size meant it scored over its rivals in our test - the best alternative car club would have been WhizzGo, which could offer a car parked about two miles away.

We booked our Streetcar Polo for 24 hours, which costs £39.50 - the larger Golf costs £49.50. The cars can also be booked by the hour (for £3.95 or £5.95 respectively), or at reduced rates for longer periods of up to 30 days. You can extend a booking on the fly, providing the car does not have a prior booking with another member.

The first 30 miles per calendar day is included in the rental charge - beyond that fees are charged at 23p per mile. The charges include fuel, car-wash and forecourt vacuuming costs, and a card is provided inside each car to which these costs can be charged at most filling stations. Members are encouraged to return the car clean and with at least a quarter of a tank of fuel.

Once the depreciation costs of owning a car are considered, the Streetcar pricing structure makes good financial sense for relatively light users. However, for those who tend to drive more than two or three days per week it will almost certainly prove uneconomic.

Members can unlock booked cars instantly with their smartcard, or if you have forgotten your card you can call the Streetcar helpdesk to unlock remotely, which takes about a minute to activate. We used the latter option and found our call answered promptly, by a very polite and helpful operator who walked us through the entry procedure for our first booking.

Once the doors were unlocked, we located the ignition key in the glove compartment. A fob on the key ring docks in an electronic keypad, wired into the glove-box. The keypad, which resembles the units used to verify chip-and-PIN transactions, also holds the fuel charge card and provides a means to contact Streetcar via the car’s built-in hands-free phone. Typing in our Streetcar PIN released the car key, and we were ready to drive away immediately.

During the rental period you simply lock and unlock the car with the key, but at the end of the booking, the car needs to be returned to its home parking place, and the key slotted back into its dock. The unit asks you to confirm the end your booking, and then provides a summary of the trip including the total distance travelled. The car doors then need to be locked, by smartcard or via the call centre, after which you can walk away and await your monthly statement.

Our Polo proved to be reasonably clean inside and out at the start of our test, with ample fuel in the tank. A full VW owner’s guide was present to explain any perplexing buttons, together with a separate Streetcar user guide and a UK road atlas. Incidentally, no-one is allowed to smoke in Streetcars but lighter sockets are provided to power portable satnav units, and stereos have plugs for MP3 players.

Members are encouraged to inspect for damage at the start of each booking, then check against a damage log in the user guide and report anything new. Evidently Streetcars lead a relatively hard life - a VW Polo is small, easy to park and ours had just 4,500 miles on the clock but had already suffered damage to a mirror housing and the front bumper, plus a few minor paint scrapes.

Aside from these blemishes the car looked presentable, and was free of car club livery. It would easily pass for a private car.

Although the scheme is primarily aimed at consumers, Streetcar says it offers a practical, tax-efficient alternative to a company car - again, for light users only. If companies provide staff with Streetcar mileage allowances they incur only personal tax on the actual cost, rather than company car tax rates. Streetcar could clearly also provide an alternative to a car pool, and the company argues that its prices are also cheaper than reimbursing employees by the mile for using their own car. A corporate membership can cover multiple staff and costs just £99 per year. Streetcar says Shell and Kent County Council currently employ its services.

Overall we found the Streetcar experience straightforward, pleasant and convenient. For light users of cars in the urban areas covered, we think the scheme makes a great deal of sense.