Car sharing service DriveNow, which currently offers 300 cars in Brussels, will officially stop serving the capital on 29 February 2020, the company said in a statement.
"This decision was not made lightly. We started in Brussels three years ago with the vision to change urban mobility and offer a flexible and attractive mobility solution which is in combination with public transport an alternative to the private car," the company said in it's not to customers.
Despite reporting an average of a thousand trips a day in Brussels, the company has said it now must "face the hard reality that we could still not convince enough people to do so."
Services in London and Florence are also a cause for concern. "None of these three cities gives clear signs of future profitability," it explained.
The focus in the coming years will instead be on the remaining 18 European cities that have clear "potential for profitable growth and mobility innovation."
According to its balance sheets, the company suffered losses of €2.93 million in 2018, compared with €3.25 million a year earlier and €2.24 million in 2016, BX1 reports. It would have needed at least 60,000 customers taking four trips per month to get out of the red.
"We are saddened by this decision and deeply apologize for the inconvenience this will cause you when service ends," the statement ends.
Anyone with questions or concerns is advised to contact service@drive-now.be.
Jules Johnston
The Brussels Times
