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A strong attachment to the car vis-à-vis a long wait for alternative solutions As Vincent Dupray, director of development in the automobile department at TNS Sofres explained at the conference entitled "The service car of tomorrow", organised by the Chronos Group, car use remains dominant in France in both rural and peri-urban areas. "
Car ownership is not a widely questioned concept for French citizens. Half of the French population continues to use the car for reasons of comfort and rapidity".
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the alternatives are still perceived as rather vague and only elicit genuine interest among a minority of France's inhabitants (- 9% in the case of car pools, 4.9% in the case of car sharing), "
even this is sufficient to encourage the movement. The French think that the work will initially return to the communities, to car rental companies and to transport operators."
Long-term car hire: "another way” of protecting the environment Major companies have been the first to decentralise their vehicle fleets by delegating the management to specialists: "
long-term rental companies". SME-SMIs and self-employed individuals, particularly those from non-trading private companies are set to follow suit. Companies also have access to leasing, and individuals can hire with the option to buy (closed-end financial leasing), or hire with the promise to sell. In all cases, the leasing party remains the vehicle owner and their name appears on the registration documents.
Regardless of whether it’s a question of long-term leasing in the strict sense, usually reserved for companies, general leasing or closed-end financial leasing, long-term leasing allows individuals to drive latest generation vehicles. This is one of its major advantages: the allocated vehicle benefits from state-of-the-art technology perfected by engineers, resulting in a reduction in fuel consumption and
environmental pollution.
When you discover that almost half of vehicles on the road in France are over 11 years old, and that the average age of any given car is 8 years, long-term leasing certainly appears an attractive solution when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases and maybe even
making way for electric vehicles in future.
Short-term leasing: a booming phenomenon According to a study carried out by TNS Sofres in 2008 relating to the short-term vehicle leasing market in France, 6.1 % of French citizens hired at least one vehicle in 2008. The majority of lessees are middle-aged men at the upper end of the social scale (senior executives, self-employed individuals and middle managers) living in the vicinity of Paris (26.5 % of lessees live in the Paris region as opposed to 17.2 % of all car-hiring French citizens).
The creation of "train-car" or "plane-car" services (over 34 % of instances of short-term car leasing occur in the wake of a train or plane journey according to the National Council of Vehicle Professions (CNPA) is contributing to what could be termed a progressive "migration" towards
multi-purpose forms of transport.
