Starting and ending a trip
A confirmed booking is reserved for you, but the actual trip is tracked separately by starting and ending it. This article explains how to start a booking, record the return odometer when you finish, and what the system captures along the way.
Starting your trip
When it is time to collect the vehicle, start your booking. Only the booking owner can start it, and a few conditions apply:
- The booking must be in Confirmed status. You cannot start a PendingApproval, Cancelled, or already-Active booking.
- You can start up to 30 minutes before the scheduled start time. Try earlier than that and you will see "Cannot start booking yet. Please wait until closer to the scheduled start time."
When you start, the system:
- records the actual start time (the current moment);
- captures the vehicle's current odometer reading as the start odometer; and
- changes the status to Active.
Note: The start odometer is taken automatically from the vehicle's recorded odometer — you do not enter it. This becomes the baseline for calculating trip mileage.
Ending your trip
When you return the vehicle, end the booking and enter the current odometer reading. Only the booking owner can end it. You can end a booking that is Active, or one that is still Confirmed if you never explicitly started it (as long as its scheduled window has begun — the same 30-minute rule applies).
- Open the booking and choose to end it.
- Enter the vehicle's current end odometer reading.
- Submit.
The reading you enter is validated to keep mileage data clean:
| Rule | Message if violated |
|---|---|
| Cannot be negative | "Odometer reading cannot be negative" |
| Not less than the start odometer | "Odometer reading cannot be less than start odometer (…)" |
| Not less than the vehicle's last known reading | "Odometer reading cannot be less than previous reading (…)" |
What ending records
When the reading passes validation, the system:
- sets the status to Completed and records the actual return time;
- stores your end odometer and calculates the trip mileage (end minus start);
- updates the vehicle's current odometer to your new reading, so the next driver's trip starts from the correct baseline.
Warning: Enter the odometer carefully. Your reading becomes the vehicle's new official odometer value, and the next booking's start odometer is taken from it. An inflated reading will roll forward to every subsequent trip.
Ending without starting
If you complete a booking directly from Confirmed without having started it, the system records the completion time as the actual start as well, and uses the vehicle's odometer at that moment as the start reading, so the mileage still reflects the distance driven rather than a future-dated window.
Related
- Viewing your own bookings
- Book a vehicle yourself (self-service)
- Cancelling a booking
- Choosing start and end times, and how times are handled
