National Car Rental has just recently released figures that show that the amount of miles their car hire customers in the United Kingdom are driving has decreased by 19 percent during the past two years. The average amount of miles that a customer would drive use to be five hundred sixty-four in 2005, but in 2007, that number dropped to four hundred fifty-nine miles. However, with bigger vehicles available for customers to hire, National Car Rental has noticed that customers are driving more miles. The average mileage for estate and people carrier kinds of hires jumped by 15.4 percent in 2006 and 14.6 percent in 2007.

Tim Bailey, the fleet director of National Car Rental, which is part of the United Kingdom Group for Europcar, commented that the figures suggest that their customers are not just thinking about where they are going, but planning out their journey, being more selective about the miles they are driving, and choosing the vehicle that is appropriate, which indicates that they are being more conscious of the environment, fuel consumption, and congestion. They also believe, he continued, that as they have made GPS units more available to use in planning routes, it has made a bigger impact on these figures. Overall, he added, this is a good step forward, and the drop in miles for small-sized and medium-sized vehicles, along with the increased mileage of the bigger cars customers can hire, suggests that customers are asking themselves how to travel more wisely.

To learn more about National Car Rental, go to their website at: www.nationalcar.co.uk