Beyond Ownership: Reimagining corporate mobility( powered by Europcar)
Summary
Timm Burmeister, Commercial Director at Europcar Germany, presented a session at ITB Berlin arguing that corporate fleet management — often overlooked in business travel discussions — is a major and underappreciated segment of corporate mobility. He opened by framing the session provocatively: a former colleague questioned whether fleet topics were relevant at ITB, which is dominated by air travel and rental car discussions for destination transport. Burmeister made the case that pool cars represent a massive, largely self-managed asset class that most companies are running inefficiently.
He cited a striking data point: while professional rental car fleets in Germany number approximately 300,000–320,000 cars across all operators, the number of pool/fleet cars managed internally by German companies is estimated at around 960,000 — making corporations collectively the largest 'rental car operators' in the country, far surpassing Europcar, Sixt, Avis, and Hertz. Europcar itself manages 40,000 cars in Germany, which Burmeister described as a full-time operation with extensive compliance and operational overhead.
Burmeister catalogued the operational burdens of running a corporate pool fleet: selecting the right vehicle types (sedans, station wagons, vans) amid a crowded and confusing market including new Chinese brands; managing seasonal demand swings (low in late December, high in March–April); key handover logistics including weekend and after-hours access problems; workshop coordination when cars break down; and the serious legal liability of fleet managers, who face personal legal exposure if a car in poor technical condition is involved in an accident. One fleet manager told him he felt 'always with one foot in prison.' Driver's license verification must be continual, and companies must document who drove which car at any given time in order to respond to police traffic fine notices — fines go to the company, not the driver.
The solution Burmeister presented is Europcar's FleetShare product — a fully digitalized corporate car sharing platform built on top of Europcar's rental car infrastructure and telematic hardware. The platform consists of a smart booking/management portal for fleet administrators and an all-in-one mobile app for end users, modeled on familiar floating car-sharing apps (with a map, car availability, and keyless access). Key features include: group-based access control (e.g., only technicians can access vans, only C-level can access luxury vehicles); configurable business vs. personal use (employees can rent cars on weekends, which companies can price to partially refinance the fleet); flexible geo-fenced rental stations that can be created or deleted in seconds using a map interface; and pop-up rental stations for temporary project sites. A construction company case study illustrated this — they built a temporary digital rental station at a two-to-two-and-a-half-year factory construction site to manage traffic between HQ and site, then deleted it upon project completion.
Keyless access is handled via a hardware telematics device installed in each car (Burmeister noted that native car data APIs do not yet support remote lock/unlock for this use case). The system also enforces return conditions: administrators can require cars to be returned at 70%+ charge, mandate photo documentation of vehicle condition at return, and set other configurable rules. The platform integrates existing company-owned vehicles — when an employee leaves and their company car enters the pool, the telematics unit is installed and the car becomes part of FleetShare. The majority of companies currently using FleetShare have electrified their fleet, which Burmeister framed as supporting ESG and CO2 reduction goals.
Burmeister closed by noting that FleetShare is not primarily a software product — Europcar's core business remains car rental — but the platform emerged organically from the need to help corporate clients manage hybrid fleets more efficiently. Europcar was exhibiting in Hall 9 at ITB.
Key Takeaways
- •Germany has approximately 960,000 cars managed in corporate pool/fleet programs — roughly 3x the size of all professional rental car fleets combined (300,000–320,000 cars), making corporations the de facto largest car rental operators in the country.
- •Europcar manages 40,000 cars in Germany, which Burmeister described as requiring full-time operational management — underscoring the scale of burden companies face when self-managing fleets a fraction of that size.
- •Fleet managers face serious personal legal liability: one fleet manager told Burmeister he felt 'always with one foot in prison,' because lending a car in poor technical condition that causes an accident exposes the responsible individual to criminal risk.
- •Traffic fines in Germany are issued to the registered vehicle owner (the company), not the driver — fleet managers must maintain detailed, time-stamped records of who drove each car to redirect fines to the correct employee.
- •Key handover logistics remain a persistent pain point: most pool fleets still require a human to hand over keys, making access outside business hours (weekends, Friday evenings, Sunday afternoons) practically impossible without automation.
- •FleetShare uses hardware-based telematics devices to enable keyless access because native car manufacturer APIs do not yet support remote lock/unlock at the level needed for car sharing use cases.
- •Fleet administrators can create geo-fenced rental stations in approximately 5 seconds using a map interface — a construction company case study showed a temporary station created at a factory build site (2–2.5 year project) and deleted upon completion.
- •Companies can configure FleetShare to allow employee personal use of pool vehicles on weekends (e.g., Friday 4pm to Monday 10am) and set their own rental pricing, enabling partial fleet cost refinancing through employee weekend rentals.
- The platform supports access group segmentation: vans restricted to technicians, luxury vehicles to C-level or salespeople with key client appointments, smaller cars to younger or lower-grade drivers — all configurable by the administrator.
Transcript
We are nearing the end of the business travel track stage here today and I would like to ask you to join me in welcoming a speaker who is right at the forefront of transforming corporate mobility. The traditional company fleet faces rising costs, stricter CO2 requirements and employees who expect flexible and digital solutions. Ownership alone is no longer enough and today's session explores what comes next. Tim here is the commercial director at Europa Germany. You will probably say a few words...
