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Drive Mate, Australia’s most secure and affordable peer-to-peer car-sharing company, has unveiled a pioneering car-share hub on the doorstep of Sydney’s Domestic Airport, in a move that will shake-up the way people travel to and from the airport.
Located at 40 Baxters Road Mascot, the hub is barely a 10-minute walk from the airport and can accommodate 40 vehicles – while Drive mate partners with car-share hosts located close to the airport, ensuring a steady stream of cars should available vehicles in the hub be exhausted.
Now, Drive Mate’s expanding membership base of 70,000-plus guests can book a vehicle – even while in the air en route to Sydney – and have access to a vehicle with few clicks in the Drive Mate app.
“With no need to queue to pick up keys or sign agreements on-site, the process is seamless and will reduce the traditionally-cumbersome waiting times at car hire check-in desks significantly. Furthermore, as vehicles can be booked for as little as $40 a day, the hiring of vehicles at the airport is suddenly affordable,” says Dirk-Jan ter Horst, co-founder of Drive Mate.
“This truly is a game changer for travellers,” he says. “The vehicle options alone are enticing upon launch – everything from a Toyota Corolla to an Audi Q3, and with more to come as hosts onboard vehicles, guests will have many options to best fit their budget.
“But more importantly, it’s the convenience of being able to book a vehicle in advance and not having to wait in a queue to pick it up, sign forms and other time-consuming methods just to hire a vehicle are null and void when using Drive Mate’s airport hub. For families, one parent could wait for the bags at the carousel while the other goes and picks up the car, returning even before the bag has arrived.”
Drive Mate’s vehicles can be hired hourly, daily, weekly or even monthly, creating an ideal option for people visiting the harbour city. Petrol and insurance costs are covered with any hire, with any fuel purchases reimbursed.
Often in the traditional car-hire process, those hiring a vehicle are often demoted to a lesser vehicle as hire companies overbook. This is not the case with Drive Mate, according to its co-founder Gaurav Singhal.
“What you book is what you get, delivering an assurance to drivers they rarely get at airports,” says Guarav. “Now, drivers can access the vehicle through the application, open the door and drive away the vehicle they actually booked, and much more affordably than ever.”
The company has adapted its model to make the hiring experience seamless for guests and the onboarding and management incredibly simple for hosts, says Gaurav
“We’ve enabled GPS in all vehicles and automated kilometre tracking, to take the heavy lifting off hosts when it comes to the billing process,” he says. “For guests, this also reduces their burden when it comes to refuelling the vehicles, as that is all done by the host or they’re quickly reimbursed for petrol when needed for long trips.”
