Enterprise Provides Congressional Testimony on "Examining the Future of Transportation Network Companies: Challenges and Opportunities"

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Commute with Enterprise vanpooling service – owned and operated by the world's largest car rental operator, Enterprise Holdings – provided testimony at yesterday's Congressional hearing on "Examining the Future of Transportation Network Companies: Challenges and Opportunities."

The hearing, part of the process to reauthorize the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, was held by the Highways and Transit Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. In addition to Enterprise, other subject-matter experts testifying included the National League of Cities, The Transportation Alliance and the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department.

Commute with Enterprise

Enterprise Holdings operates its Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands through an integrated network of independent regional subsidiaries, which includes more than 6,400 fully staffed neighborhood and airport locations in the United States.

The company also operates Commute with Enterprise, a strategic transportation solution that not only offers immediate savings and sustainability in more than 75 U.S. cities, but also provides safety – both in terms of fatalities and injuries. In fact, according to U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics data, commuter vanpools are the safest mode of public transportation.

Furthermore, every business day, Enterprise takes 67,000 individual cars off the road, eliminating 1.4 billion commuter miles driven each year and eradicating the need for 67,000 parking spaces. Additionally, 1.1 billion pounds of carbon emissions are reduced annually by Commute with Enterprise participants.

Commute with Enterprise is one of the largest and most cost-effective vanpooling programs in the nation, in urban and rural areas alike. And, based on annual passenger miles, it would rank as one of the largest U.S. public transit agencies today. As a result, Enterprise's written Congressional testimony featured examples of business case studies documenting diverse and successful vanpooling operations, from New Mexico, Michigan and Mississippi, to Florida, California and Nebraska.

Enterprise also urged Congress to make new funding available to cities, counties, transit agencies and municipal governments for innovative mobility solutions such as microtransit, commuter vanpooling, first/last mile connections, as well as for increasing rural access to jobs and healthcare. In addition, the company stressed the importance of allocating a significant portion of any new transit funds to the performance incentive formula designed to promote ridership and operational efficiency.

Marketplace Clarity & Parity

Enterprise also stated there is much to be gained from innovation in the transportation sector, notably expanded services, cost efficiencies and environmental benefits. However, the company strongly believes existing policies specifically designed to protect the public interest and consumer safety should not be rewritten simply because certain transportation providers have declared that they should be exempt.

To that end, Enterprise's testimony stressed that clarity and parity in the marketplace is essential:

"Numerous terms are being used to describe new ways to access transportation – carsharing, ridesharing, ride-hailing, vanpooling, ride-matching, peer‐to‐peer rental, point‐to‐point rental, and the list goes on. It is essential that policy at all levels be consistent and tailored toward the underlying service being provided – regardless of the means that the service is provided. All these terms are used to describe the same three basic transportation services that have existed for decades and prior to the advent of smartphones:

1. For‐hire ride-hailing – Often referred to as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), this business line, like traditional taxicabs and limo services, provides a service that the Associated Press has labeled 'ride-hailing.' A consumer pays to have a driver transport them from, and to, locations of the consumer's choosing; and the driver intends to profit by providing the transportation to the consumer.
2. Carpools and Vanpools – The correct term for organized car and vanpools is traditional 'ridesharing.' It includes technology platforms that connect people who want to carpool; and vanpooling, which is the service of providing a large occupancy vehicle for people who want to commute together. In ridesharing, the driver of the vehicle is a volunteer and contributes to the cost of the transportation.
3. Car Rental/Carsharing – If you are paying someone to allow you to personally operate a vehicle you don't own, whether for an hour, a day, a week or a month. This also includes peer‐to‐peer carsharing, where private individuals rent their vehicle to another private individual."

To learn more about Commute with Enterprise, visit www.commutewithenterprise.com.

About Enterprise Holdings
Enterprise Holdings, Inc., manages the largest and most diverse privately-owned fleet in the world through an integrated network of more than 10,000 fully staffed neighborhood and airport rental locations. This global network of independent regional subsidiaries and franchises also operates the flagship Enterprise Rent-A-Car brand – as well as the National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands – in 100 countries and territories. Combined, Enterprise Holdings and its affiliate Enterprise Fleet Management, which currently manage more than 2 million vehicles and employ 100,000 worldwide, accounted for $25.9 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2019. In total, the annual revenues of Enterprise Holdings and Enterprise Fleet Management rank near the top of the global travel industry, ahead of many airlines and most cruise lines, hotels, tour operators and online travel agencies. Enterprise Holdings currently is ranked as one of America's Largest Private Companies and if it were publicly traded, would rank on Fortune's list of the 500 largest American public companies.

SOURCE Enterprise Holdings

Related Links

https://www.enterpriseholdings.com