The London LEZ covers most of the area inside the M25 (image courtesy of Martin Addison)

Van hire customers renting vans from companies operating older vans should be aware that the rules for driving into the London Low Emission Zone change from 3rd January 2012.

The LEZ covers most of the area inside the M25, although some outlying areas are excluded (click here for a map).

Vans affected are likely to be at least 10 years old (51 reg or older) and so most mainstream van hire companies will not be affected, as most rental companies operate newer vans.

However, companies offering specialist vehicles for hire – such as splitter vans for bands, tour buses, horseboxes, cherry pickers, 3.5t tippers with cranes, ambulances, motorhomes and other specialist vehicles often run older rental fleets to compensate for the higher initial cost of the vehicle.

What Are The New LEZ Rules?

All light commercial vehicles must meet the Euro 3 emissions standard or face a daily fee of £100 (<3.5t) for driving into the London Low Emission Zone, starting January 3rd 2012. For vehicles over 3.5t, the fee is £200 per day.

Transport for London has taken the position of assuming that  ’vehicles registered as new before 1 January 2002′ will not meet the Euro 3 requirement. But… a number of light commercial vehicle models registered in 2001 are Euro 3 compliant and will meet the new rules without requiring any modification.

Transport for London has published a list of ‘early adopters’ on its website – so vehicle owners can check whether their vehicle is on the list.

I’m Renting – Where Does This Leave Me?

As usual with the law, the onus is on the driver to make sure that they are complying with all relevant rules.

If you rent a light commercial vehicle on the following list that was registered before 1st January 2002, and you wish to take it into the London LEZ, you will need to check the situation for yourself*.

Weight 1.205 – 3.5 tonnes:

• Vans
• Motorised horseboxes
• 4×4 light utility vehicles (more than 8 seats or van variant of 4×4)
• All Pickups
• Other commercial vehicles

Weight 2.5 – 3.5 tonnes:

• Motor caravans (motorhomes and campervans)
• Ambulances

Weight < 5 tonnes:

• Minibuses with 8-16 passenger seats

Further Information

The LEZ is operated by Transport for London and all the information you need should be available on its website. Here are some key links:

• LEZ homepage
• About the LEZ (including coverage details and map)
• Which vehicles are affected? (includes registration plate checker tool – use this if checking a specific vehicle)

*All of the information provided here is believed to be correct at the time of publishing and VanRental.co.uk will endeavour to maintain it in the future. However, no responsibility can be taken for errors, omissions or future changes to the rules. Check the Transport for London website for the latest information.

This new Easirent discount code is valid for all hires (car rental and van rental):

• Start Date: All hires starting from 15/11/2011 – 31/03/2012
• End Date for booking: 30th December 2011
• Voucher Code: CARHIRE5

Click here to visit www.easirent.com

Easirent has van hire branches in the following locations:

• Liverpool
• Wigan
• Preston
• Rochdale
• Wolverhampton
• East London (Leytonstone)
• London Gatwick Airport

Collection and dropoff are also possible at many major airports and railway stations – visit www.easirent.com for more information.

Thrifty Car and Van Rental is to add 6,000 new vehicles to its UK rental fleet, including 800 vans.

After the last two severe winters, the company is also expecting strong demand for 4×4 vehicles and is increasing the number of 4×4 pickup trucks on its fleet by 25%.

Thrifty has 85 branches in the UK.

Used Van Market Will Face Shortages Over Next Few Years

The UK used van market is likely to experience a shortage of good quality, low mileage vans over the next four years, according to a new report from British Car Auctions.

Since 2009, fewer new vans have been registered and many operators have been keeping vans in service for longer, resulting in second hand stock that is older and higher mileage. The BCA report estimates that there will be a shortfall of up to 275,000 vans on the used market between 2011 and 2015.

Rather than buying poor quality used vans, businesses in need of additional or replacement vans may be tempted to try the flexible hire services provided by large van rental companies, whose purchasing power means that they do have a large, young fleet of modern vans.

This means you cannot simply hire a van for the weekend and then take it to the tip – you will need to plan ahead and contact Cornwall Council to be issued with a permit, which allows 12 visits per year.

Cornwall Council has introduced the permit scheme to crack down on abuse of household tips by trade users, who pretend that their waste is domestic in order to avoid paying commercial rates for its disposal.

The scheme has already produced impressive results – Cornwall Council says that there has been a 15% fall in waste going through household waste sites since the permit requirement was introduced. This equates to a £600,000 saving – costs that were presumably previously being met by council tax payers.

Cornwall Council has issued 14,500 permits so far, including 9,200 for vans.

Cornwall Council has Household Waste Recycling Centres in the following loctions (click on the links for nearby van rental branches or click here to search for van hire in your area):

• Bodmin
• Bude
• Liskeard (Connon Bridge)
• Falmouth
• Helston
• Launceston
• Newquay
• Redruth
• Saltash
• St Austell
• St Day (Redruth)
• St Erth (Hayle)
• Tintagel (Bowithick)

However, both of these approaches require medium-term financial commitment. Given the current economic uncertainty affecting many European economist (including the UK’s), many business owners are shying away from new commitments of this kind, especially given that finance is harder to arrange than it used to be.

At the same time, businesses are anxious to meet existing demand and exploit new opportunities – which may require additional or replacement vans.

Long-Term Van Hire – A Better Solution

If your business requires vans with few modifications from stock, the best solution might be a long-term van rental. Companies such as Europcar offer Month+ hire schemes aimed at providing you with long-term use with no onwards commitment.

Europcar will invoice you monthly and you can change – or return – your van at any time, without penalties.

You can either book for a set period – perhaps 4 weeks – and renew at the end of every four weeks, or you can book for several months ahead – to cover the busy Christmas period, for example.

To get a Month+ quote from Europcar, simply enter your requirements into the booking engine and choose the van (or car) you are interested in.

At present, there are still very few van rental companies in the UK that will guarantee to provide you with an automatic van – we only have one company in the VanRental.co.uk database, Bucks Vehicle Hire in High Wycombe, that offers this service. Other hire companies may sometimes have automatic vans on their fleets but they do not guarantee to provide an automatic – not much use if you can only drive automatics.

The Technical Stuff – Automated Manual Transmission

Most vans are now available with automatic gearboxes, albeit at extra cost (hence why most hire companies don’t provide them).

These automatics use a relatively new technology that has improved hugely over the last few years. This new breed of automatics is known as Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) and they work by using a conventional [manual] gearbox combined with an automated clutch and gearshift.

This means that drivers just have to put the gearbox into Drive or Reverse and then use the accelerator – there is no clutch and although it is possible to manually select gears, it is not necessary.

Automatic vans usually offer slightly better fuel economy than their manual equivalents – although this can depend on the driver and how the van is used.

Many drivers are sceptical when they first try an automatic van, but most, in my experience, are rapidly converted. I suspect that automatic vans will become much more common over the next 5-10 years, perhaps even becoming the standard choice, as is happening in the HGV market.

If your van rental company offers an automatic van hire service and you’d like to advertise on VanRental.co.uk, please contact us for more details.

It seems a strange way to enter the world’s premier sporting competition, although I suppose that it this one way to try and ensure that the London Olympics is one of the rare Games that turns a profit: funnel all the spectators through Europe’s largest urban shopping centre.

Stratford will be at the heart of London’s Olympic venues, hosting the majority of athletics events. It is expected that London van hire companies will experience a peak in demand during the 2012 Games – shortages are quite likely, so advanced booking is essential for business and private van rental customers.

A similar rush in demand is likely for minibus hire firms all over the UK – so booking ahead is essential if you are planning group trips by minibus to the 2012 Olympics.

Northgate’s fleet utilisation rose from 89% in April to a peak of 91% in August. However, to achieve this improvement in utilisation, the company reduced its fleet size by 4,700 vehicles between April and the end of August. Northgate’s fleet now stands at 56,500 vehicles.

That’s an 8% cut in fleet size to achieve a 2% rise in utilisation – suggesting a fall in demand of 6%. Not great for the busiest time of the year.

In an interim management statement, Northgate said that vehicles on hire have fallen from 53,800 at 30 April 2011 to 51,400 at the end of August, a fall of 2,400 units, in line with the fall noted in the four months to August 2010.

Northgate, which serves business van users more than retail customers, is seen by the financial markets as a useful guide to the health of the van rental sector. This news is not surprising but does reflect ongoing challenging trading conditions for the van rental sector.

One good piece of news is that second-hand van values appear to be holding up, at least for good stock. Northgate reported that despite the increased number of vehicle disposals this year, residual values per vehicle remained at a similar level to the previous financial year.

These fall into two categories – in London and out of London.

London Olympic Venues

London venues will be at the heart of the Olympic games and will undoubtedly draw the largest numbers of visitors – often to areas that are already busy with tourists for much of the year.

Knowing where the busy venues are and planning your van rental requirements well ahead of time will be essential if your business (or personal) activities are to remain on schedule and not be disrupted by poor van availability or traffic chaos. Here’s a list of London venues and nearby London van hire locations:

• Earls Court (nearby van hire branches in Fulham, Kensington Olympia, Victoria Station)
• ExCel Centre (nearby van hire in Barking)
• Greenwich Park (nearby van hire in Lewisham)
• Hampton Court Palace (nearby van hire in Kingston)
• Horse Guards Parade (nearby van hire at Waterloo and Victoria)
• Hyde Park (nearby van hire at Victoria, Marble Arch and St Johns Wood)
• Lord’s Cricket Ground (nearby van hire at St Johns Wood and Edgware Road)
• North Greenwich Arena (a.k.a. the Millenium Dome – nearby van hire at Lewisham, Barking and Peckham)
• The Mall (nearby van hire at Victoria Station)
• The Royal Artillery Barracks (nearby van hire at Barking and Lewisham)
• Wembley Arena & Wembley Stadium (nearby van hire at Wembley)
• Wimbledon (nearby van hire at Fulham, Merton and Sutton)

Olympic Venues Outside London

Away from London, the Olympic venues are more widely spread out. Here’s the run down:

• Brands Hatch (nearby van rental at Swanley, Tonbridge and Rochester)
• City of Coventry Stadium (nearby van hire in Coventry)
• Eton Dorney (nearby van hire in Slough)
• Hadleigh Farm, Essex (nearby van hire in Southend-on-Sea and Hawkwell)
• Hampden Park, Glasgow (van hire in Glasgow)
• Lee Valley White Water Centre (nearby van hire in Enfield)
• Millenium Stadium, Cardiff (van hire in Cardiff)
• Old Trafford, Manchester (van hire in Manchester)
• St James Park, Newcastle (van hire in Newcastle)
• Weymouth & Portland (van hire in Weymouth and Dorchester)

Very often, this involves parents hiring a van and shuttling their children’s belongings back to their university accommodation.

Although some companies do cater for younger drivers (see our Student Van Hire page), van hire is not generally available for drivers under the age of 21. In addition, one-way van hire is usually considerably more expensive than returning the hire van to the original rental branch.

All of this means that parents are often called upon to hire a van, drive it to the university, and then drive it back again.

If your child is about to head back to university and you’ve got a transport headache, here are a few suggestions:

• Why not share the cost of a hire van with one of your child’s friends who’s heading in the same direction?
• Check out our exclusive Sixt van hire discount  - hire a large panel van for just £29 per day until 15th October 2011 (selected locations).
• If your child’s university is a long way from home, why not consider self storage for bulky items next year? Self storage pioneer Big Yellow has stores in 74 UK locations and even provides free van hire for local moves! What’s left for the summer should easily fit in your car.