For many years, carshare sat on the fringe of fleet thinking. It was often viewed as a lifestyle option for inner-city residents rather than a practical tool for organisations with real operational needs. That perception has changed, and quietly so.
The evolution of GoGet Carshare mirrors the broader shift underway in fleet management – from owning assets to enabling mobility. For businesses under pressure to improve productivity, reduce costs and better utilise vehicles, carshare has become a serious option.
According to Christopher Vanneste, Head of Space at GoGet, the roots of GoGet were never about cars for the sake of cars. “Nick and Bruce started GoGet because they were tired of seeing their suburb with cars parked on the street all week and no one using them,” he says. “They just thought there must be a better way.”
From a local experiment to a national fleet
What began with three cars and a handful of members in Newtown has grown into a national operation with around 3,000 vehicles and 300,000 members. Importantly for Fleet Auto News readers, business use is now a major part of the model.
“We’ve got about 60,000 business members,” Vanneste explains. “Some accounts have up to 1,800 drivers, others are sole traders. We work with banks, governments, universities – it really runs the full spectrum.”
That scale has given GoGet a unique perspective on fleet utilisation, compliance and behaviour. “We’ve had around 15 million bookings over time,” he says. “At that point, you’ve pretty much seen every use case.”
Technology that outpaced traditional fleets
One of the defining features of GoGet’s growth has been its early investment in technology. While many fleets were still managing pool vehicles on whiteboards and shared calendars, GoGet was building online booking systems and keyless vehicle access.
“Even now, I still talk to businesses that are using whiteboards,” Vanneste says.
From the beginning, convenience was critical. “Car ownership is incredibly convenient,” he explains. “So to compete with that, carshare has to be just as easy. You need 24-hour booking, 24-hour access, and a dedicated parking space near the user.”
Today, GoGet designs its technology in-house, from booking platforms to access control. Reliability is non-negotiable. “We’re getting closer to being a tech company as much as a mobility company,” Vanneste says. “We need 99 per cent uptime because people rely on us as their main form of transport.”
A shift from fleet to mobility thinking
The real change, however, is not just technological – it’s conceptual. Organisations are increasingly looking beyond vehicles and focusing on how people move to deliver services.
This mindset accelerated during COVID and has continued as hybrid work becomes embedded. “We know where our members live because they sign up with their personal address,” Vanneste explains. “Someone who used GoGet in the CBD four years ago now needs a pool car from their house. Their GoGet is literally in their apartment basement.”
For fleets, this highlights a growing disconnect between traditional pool car models and how employees actually work.
The utilisation problem fleets can’t ignore
Ask almost any Fleet Manager about utilisation and the answer is usually the same: it’s understood, but rarely optimised.
“Maximum use for a business car might be 240 days a year – and that’s if it’s out every single day,” Vanneste says.
Yet many fleets carry vehicles that are only used once or twice a week. Those vehicles still incur depreciation, registration, insurance and maintenance costs.
“This is where the conversation becomes very easy,” he says. “Keep the vehicles that are used four or five days a week, and get rid of the ones that are only needed occasionally.”
Carshare allows fleets to plan for the core 80 per cent of demand with owned vehicles, while covering the remaining 20 per cent through access rather than ownership.
Cost per trip changes the conversation
GoGet encourages organisations to look at cost per trip rather than cost per vehicle. “Whether it’s cost per day or cost per kilometre, once you understand what a vehicle is really costing you per trip, everything changes,” Vanneste says.
In one example, a pool car used only two days a week worked out at around $150 per trip. “At that point, it’s very easy to compare that with a carshare booking,” he says.
For Fleet Managers under pressure to justify fleet size, this type of analysis provides a clear, defensible pathway to reduce assets without reducing mobility.
Managing risk and compliance
Another area where carshare resonates is grey fleet risk. Licensing, vehicle condition and compliance remain persistent challenges for many organisations.
“All our drivers go through ID and licence checks,” Vanneste says. “We often see resistance when grey fleets move to carshare because issues surface – like someone who’s lost their licence. We take that compliance burden away.”
Vehicles are owned, insured and maintained by GoGet, reducing risk exposure for businesses while simplifying administration.
Fleet management without a depot
Running a shared fleet at scale brings its own operational discipline. “It’s fleet management in the wild,” Vanneste says. “We don’t have a return depot, so every car off the road matters.”
Maintenance and cleaning are planned around known peak periods. “We’ll service vehicles before Christmas because we know we need every car available,” he explains.
A practical tool for modern fleets
Carshare is no longer about replacing fleets – it’s about complementing them. For Fleet Auto News readers grappling with utilisation, compliance and cost pressure, GoGet offers a practical way to reduce fleet size without reducing capability.
As fleets mature and mobility becomes the focus, access-based models are moving from the edge to the centre of fleet strategy. The lesson is simple: not every mobility problem needs another vehicle on the balance sheet.
- Why now could be the perfect time to buy FleetPartners
FleetPartners has suddenly become the hottest acquisition target in Australian fleet management. SG Fleet, Element Fleet Management and ORIX are all circling the business, with FleetPartners now considering competing non-binding proposals. It raises an obvious question: why now? The answer may be that FleetPartners has spent the best part of a decade doing the difficult work - ORIX makes it three in the fight for FleetPartnersThe battle for FleetPartners has gone from an approach, to a bidding contest, to something resembling a fleet industry heavyweight bout. And we’re only in round three. ORIX Corporation has become the latest company to enter the process, lodging an indicative, non-binding and conditional cash offer of $3.80 per FleetPartners share. Its arrival follows Element
- Element steps into FleetPartners takeover contest with $820 million proposalElement Fleet Management has confirmed its interest in acquiring FleetPartners, adding a global fleet management heavyweight to what is quickly becoming one of the most closely watched transactions in the Australian and New Zealand fleet market. The Toronto-based company has submitted a non-binding indicative proposal to acquire FleetPartners for $3.80 per share in cash, valuing
- FleetPartners takeover battle heats up as Element crashes SG Fleet’s partyWhat looked like a relatively straightforward takeover approach for FleetPartners has suddenly become much more interesting. A week ago, SG Fleet put $3.60 per share on the table for FleetPartners. The proposal was unsolicited, indicative, non-binding and conditional, but it was enough to put one of Australia and New Zealand’s major fleet management businesses officially
- Toyota’s hybrid strategy is still reshaping Australia’s fleet marketToyota’s move into plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicles does not signal the end of hybrid’s importance to Australian fleets. Instead, the company’s latest product strategy suggests hybrid will remain the volume lower-emissions option for many fleet applications well into the next decade. Toyota Australia expects efficiency hybrid vehicles to account for 39 per cent of
