Owning a car and enjoying the perks of it is a dream of every common man. Yet no matter how tempting the idea of owning a car might feel, the financial circumstances, payment issues, parking, and space-related problems in urban societies contribute to dropping this idea for a middle-class man. To overcome these issues a new service was launched that is, a self-drive car rental service. These services have gained significant popularity in India over the past few decades due to the range of benefits of these services in various industries, businesses, and consumers. These services provide consumers an edge over traditional car ownership or basic conventional car rentals as these services are more flexible and are evolving according to the growing urban population of the country. As the cities in urban localities face several issues such as traffic congestion, shortage of parking spaces, and the spiking cost of owning a vehicle, the innovative solution of self-drive car rental services provides a better alternative to the population who wants to ignore these problems.
One of the major advantages of self-drive car rental services is that it provides flexibility to the users who are availing it. In the desely populated cities of the country where public transportation is vastly developed and managed but personal vehicles are very expensive to own, this service provides the customer an upperhand to access the car only when required. This is especially beneficial because people who rarely drive might need a car for the weekend, a wedding, or any other errands. It makes it possible for the customer to benefit from the use of cars in a way that they do not own the car, hence they do not have to worry next to the costs of insurance, parking and maintenance.
Another advantage that self-drive car rentals provide is lower costs. Many Asian countries witness a significantly high cost in buying and possessing a car caused by taxes, import duties, and restricted parking lots. Besides, self-drive rentals are cheaper than owning a vehicle because, for a few dollars or rupees, the users can access different brands of cars of their choice. This is particularly beneficial especially if one is operating in metro cities where possession of car is limited and very costly. Also, since these are pay as you go services, the actual time that the user is using the vehicle is taken into account and again improves the way expenses have been managed.
The self-drive car rental model helps cut down the traffic menace and pollution in the cities as well. In this way, the provision of these services reduces the utilization of car use hence reducing the traffic and the amount of emission in the environment. This is in line with the trends of most Asian large cities that are keen to slowdown their population’s use of fossil fuels and emissions to the atmosphere. In addition, the self-drive rental companies operating in the cities are slowly starting to include electric and hybrid automobiles in their renting opportunities, thus opening the options for the ecological consumers interested in renting automobiles. To the tourists as well as the business visitors, self-drive car rentals has numerous advantages because they allow unrestricted freedom.
Finally, self-drive car rentals can lead to better road safety around the region specific to its numerous clients. The maintenance of the fleets by many rental companies is good, where the cars are taken for servicing and fitted with latest safety gadgets. This would indeed be helpful in the sense that countries with aggregate vehicle populations that are comparatively older or not serviced as much. Moreover, this technology includes GPS in the services and monitoring of the driving behavior of the users hence help to reduce on the levels of accidents.