In 2008, Alfa Cars began development of a bespoke auto-allocation system to assign vehicles for all customer bookings. It was swiftly deployed, leading to an immediate reduction in the average distance travelled by vehicles to reach customer pick-up points. This led to a marked reduction in like-for-like fuel use, as well as quicker response times.

Ongoing development has resulted in a significant drop in ‘dead mileage’ (the distance driven without passengers on board). Other developments have further reduced wasted journeys, such as enabling drivers at the end of their shift to able to request a job in the direction of their home.

Auto-allocation technology has played a key role in Alfa Cars achieving a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per journey between 2002 and 2008. A further 3.4% CO2 reduction per journey was achieved in 2009-10.* For 2010-11, Alfa Cars estimates that it has cut fleet CO2 emissions by 10% through a combination of fine-tuning the auto-allocation software and continuing a rolling program of fleet renewal, whereby older vehicles are replaced by newer models with lower exhaust emissions and hiring drivers with electric cars, making your journey even greener.