Telia Eesti – car sharing at an Estonian IT and telecoms company

Managing a company fleet with car sharing. Telia Eesti is a leading Estonian IT and telecommunications company whose mission is to support the development of society and make Estonia a better place to live and work.

As a company, Telia Eesti is committed to using technology to make life easier and more enjoyable for people – including its 1,600 employees.

That is why its ambitious goals for 2030 include:

• Zero CO2 across its entire value chain
• Zero Waste: a circular economy business model
• Success through joint effort: action for all members of the Telia Eesti family – employees, partners and, hopefully, customers too.

The organisation has set out very specific, clear plans for reaching its goals by 2030, and according to Mari-Liis Vihul, head of the administration department at Telia Eesti, its fleet will be CO2-free within 5 years.

How will they achieve this? Mari-Liis explains:

“We've agreed that from now on we'll only buy electric cars – no hybrids, no fossil fuels – only electric. To charge the electric cars, we'll only use green energy – wind and hydro. We also share our fleet with all Telia employees – for private use too, so you don't need to have a car of your own.”

“On top of that, from 2025 we'll only use electric taxis and a different reimbursement scheme for private cars. This means that if, as an employee, you drive a fossil-fuel car, you'll get less in commuting allowances than those who drive electric cars.”

Employee car sharing – the “pool car system”

Telia Eesti's company fleet consists of around 150 vehicles across Estonia, and 10 of them are currently used for car sharing.

“We call them ‘pool cars’,” explains Mari-Liis. “It means that anyone can book a car from the office and use it for their personal needs. It also helps us get rid of cars that are rarely used.”

“Employees can only use N1 category vehicles – which are light commercial vehicles – and as long as they fill in their business and private trip journal, the Estonian tax benefit system currently supports this, but only for N1 vehicles.”

Although car usage fell significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic because people were working from home, even under these circumstances Telia's shared fleet racked up 968 bookings and covered 110,043 km in 5 months.

Here are some quick usage statistics for car sharing at Telia Eesti:

• Cars available for booking: 10
• Bookings: 968
• Number of trips: 4,032
• Hours booked: 12,934
• Total km: 110,043

How does Telia use Fleet Complete's Carsharing solution?

The concept of car sharing isn't new – Telia has been sharing company cars for 10 years. What is new is the use of technology to simplify the administration of bookings, to separate business and private use, and to provide keyless entry to the car.

“Over the past eight months,” explains Mari-Liis, “we've updated the entire car sharing system at an organisational level. Today we synchronise Telia's Active Directory information with the Fleet Complete platform so that employees can log in with their Telia account.”

Employees download the Fleet Complete Carsharing app, which lets them:

• Book a car.
• Unlock the car doors.
• Add notes on business or personal use in the automated trip journal.

“Employees who have used the cars receive a message every week asking them to review their trips from the previous week and mark whether they were for private or business use.”

“At the end of the month, the data from Fleet Complete is sent to Telia's payroll system and the cost of private trips is deducted from employees' salaries. Similarly, the costs of using company cars are sent to managers so that they can check they are correct.”

Why is corporate car sharing good for a company?

• Car sharing helps optimise costs through more efficient use of vehicles.
• Stickers on the cars act as brand advertising as they drive through the city streets.
• It gives employees the chance to try electric cars.

“It's good for employees because it gives them the chance to really try out a new type of car – electric cars are still genuinely new on the market – and many people haven't tried one yet. It also lets them get used to charging systems.”

“Another plus,” adds Mari-Liis, “is that if you live in the city centre, you can give up your own car, because you know you can always book one from the office.”

“So it's really good for the company, it's great for employees and it's good for the environment.”

How do Telia employees feel about the new car sharing system?

“The new system was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, so because of office closures only 15% of employees – or 240 users – have had the chance to try it, and they rate it as really good.”

“We work with the Fleet Complete team every day to fine-tune the system, and I'm more than confident that in a few months it will be perfect.”