THE Government should recognise daily rental vehicles as a distinct entity when it formulates its new plans for an integrated transport solution. Terry King-Smith, chairman and chief executive of BCR Car & Van Rental, believes there is a clear danger that short-term hire vehicles could suffer inadvertently under any blanket policy designed to reduce car usage, especially in urban areas.

He has written to the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association pressing the very different case presented by the daily rental industry which has a much greater affinity with an integrated transport policy.

'Daily rental does not propose vehicle ownership, but vehicle sharing. Daily rental sits alongside public transport, bringing the use of a vehicle in when there is either no public transport between the two points, or the user has arrived at a transportation head such as a railway station, port or airport,' said King-Smith. 'The daily rental service offers car sharing, less parking and a number of other factors where I believe the Government should be persuaded to provide the rental industry with benefits and encourage development, rather than to penalise the daily rental companies' fleets in the same way as they would do a contract hire fleet.'