Nottingham City Council is set to add more vehicles and hire sites to its City Car Club programme, including one new location that will be dedicated to Nottingham’s first electric car share vehicle.

Around 60% of City Car Club members in Nottingham are corporate customers.

Councillor Nick McDonald, portfolio holder for growth, jobs and transport, said: “We know that for many people a car is their preferred travel option.

“City Car Club offers residents and businesses an option to use more sustainable cars in a flexible way to help reduce congestion and C02 emissions.

“We have worked closely with our business community to offer free memberships and drive time credits during the first year of operation, so City Car Club cars can offer businesses an alternative to grey fleet and pool car usage.”

In November, 2014, the council was awarded £37,000 by the Department for Transport (DfT) via CarPlus to help further develop Nottingham's integrated transport network, expanding the City Car Club fleet from eight locations and nine vehicles to 11 locations and 12 vehicles.

There will be three new neighbourhood hubs introduced at key transport interchanges to offer access to a pool of shared cars, local public transport and Citycard Cycle hire.

The Citycard, the council's integrated smart ticket, currently offers train, tram, bus and bike travel.

It can now also be upgraded to access City Car Club vehicles in addition to the usual scheme membership card. This means Citycard users can get off the bus or tram and straight into a City Car Club hire car.

City Car Club has operated car sharing on behalf of Nottingham City Council since May 2014, initially offering eight vehicles for hire within the city centre.

In all, 221 members have joined the City Car Club project in the last year, with members travelling more than 43,000 miles.

Alistair Kirkbride, executive director of Carplus, said: "Nottingham is a leading the way in showing how easy - and cheap - it can be to live without owning a car.

“By making it possible to use buses, trains and car club cars with just one smart card, it will open up opportunities for people to choose the best, cheapest and most efficient ways to travel.

“This is just the first of several demonstration projects funded under the Developing Car Clubs in England Programme.

“We are very excited at seeing this scheme in action, demonstrating the potential benefits of integrating car clubs into transport provision."

Dan Gursel, general manager for City Car Club, now part of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, added: “Integrated schemes such as Nottingham show that car clubs are taking off by providing a real alternative for everyday travel.

“From our data we can see that local businesses and residents are already regular users of car sharing here and equally visitors to the city who are members in other locations are also accessing the vehicles.

“From our experience in other cities and in the US we believe Nottingham’s approach could become a model for integrated transport in other cities.”

Recently acquired by Enterprise Rent-A-Car, City Car Club already operates around 150 vehicles in the city.

The Edinburgh City Car Club scheme, which has operated since 2001, is the UK’s longest-established car sharing programme.

It is the largest outside London and approximately one-in-five of City Car Club’s UK members are based in Edinburgh.