Go North East and Co-Wheels launch new mobility service

Go North East and Co-Wheels have collaborated to launch a dynamic new flexible mobility solution which allows people to use a bus for regular journeys and still have access to a car when needed.

‘Flexility’ is a new smartcard-based season ticket that can be used on Go North East buses, whilst also including a car club membership.

The car club offer sits on top of a Go North East bus season ticket on a smartcard that includes free car club membership, £30 driving credit and no monthly subscription fees.

Existing Go North East smartcard holders can request a free upgrade to Flexility, and existing Co-Wheels subscribers are being offered a 15% discount on Go North East bus season tickets.

Commenting on the launch, Martijn Gilbert, managing director of Go North East, said: “The Flexility smartcard is something that we believe is a particularly good fit with the emerging new norm changes to peoples travel patterns and examples of things like blended home-office working where full-time car ownership is now even less financially viable for many people.

“Whilst not a completely new concept, the partnership between Go North East and Co-Wheels is a UK first and this latest generation offer gives an easy to use solution with a good coverage of cars and car sites available across Newcastle and Gateshead. It also comes at a time when using a shared mobility platform is becoming more acceptable as people re-think their travel needs following the pandemic."

Richard Falconer, managing director of Co-Wheels, said: “Flexility is the ideal solution for those who commute by bus but need a car for the occasional shopping trip or days out.

“You get the best of both worlds – cheap bus travel and access to a car when you need it without the expense of owning one. We have wanted a scheme like this for a long time as we know car club members make much more use of buses for their daily travel needs so the two work together perfectly.

“We are delighted to be teaming up with a forward-thinking company like Go North East and hope it will leads to much more joint working in future as we try to cut peoples’ travel costs and at the same time reduce CO2 to combat climate change, especially as most of our cars are hybrid or electric.”