THE VOICE OF THE EQUIPMENT RENTAL INDUSTRY

Its current activites focus on:

• The Rent versus Buy Calculator
• Sponsorship of University Theses
• Article on rental on Wikipedia
• The School of Rental

The Rent versus Buy calculator has been created by the European Rental Association to allow any stakeholder involved with construction equipment to check whether, for its specific situation, it would make more sense to rent or purchase a specific piece of construction equipment. Variables taken into account include acquisition cost, financing, utilisation rate, maintenance and other costs as well as resale rate. The calculator has been available on the ERA’s website in English since June 2008 and has since then been translated into German, French, Italian, Dutch and Danish. It has also been made available as a downloadable tool on our website and distributed to members and contacts at various tradeshows. Use the Calculator Download the Calculator
 

To support research on Europe’s rental industry, the ERA is currently sponsoring two university theses. The first thesis, drafted by a student of the University of Venice, focuses on evaluating findings resulting from the application of the Rent versus Buy Calculator. The full thesis should be made available at the end of the University year. In May 2009, the Promotion Committee also decided to fund the research of a Slovenian student on financing models for rental in the local market. The latter thesis should be completed at the end of the summer.

 

To promote the concept of equipment rental on the internet, the Promotion Committee created an article on equipment rental / plant hire on the collaborative encyclopaedia “Wikipedia” in March 2009. The text posted is aimed at forming the basis of a comprehensive article on rental as any interested stakeholder can decide to complement it with his own knowledge. The article also lists the association representing the rental industry worldwide and mentions the key public data from the ERA’s statistics report. The article is available here.

 

ASSODIMI, the rental association of Italy, published several years ago a guide destined to helping construction contractors better understand the advantages to rental and to help operators wishing to enter the rental market to understand how to set-up a rental company. The Promotion Committee had this guide translated into English and is currently assessing whether it should be developed further and complemented for use across Europe.