Sharing lifts or sharing cars is a great way to cut the cost of travelling, reduce the number of cars on the road and cut your carbon footprint. So many of our car journeys are made in vehicles with just one person or cars sit unused for much of the time.
Liftsharing
There are all sorts of ways to organise liftsharing and different apps and web-sites to support it: the home-made, those for commuters, those for one-off journeys and those for sharing taxis. All reduce car use, both directly and by giving those without cars further travel options. However, many of them can only really work in a locality of lots of people sign up for them, so there are options around start time and place.
You can have a look at the following options already running
- Liftshare – a national website
- Facebook page: Liftshare Transition Stroud
Advice on best practice on car-sharing during the current Covid 19 pandemic is available on the Liftshare site.
Car Sharing or Car Clubs
A Car Club is a rental company that allows its users to hire a car from a local location as and when they need to drive. The Club can be owned by the community or may be commercial. On average, one car club vehicle results in 10 to 15 private cars being taken off the road (Source: CoCars).
Peer to peer car sharing is an alternative to a car club, enabling people with underused vehicles to offer them for rent to their neighbours and other members of the local area. This avoids the need to raise capital for a shared car until demand is proven. A commercial company arranges everything and takes a modest commission. Examples are HiYaCar and Getaround.
So the things we’d need to do are:
- Find out who currently lift shares in Chalford and what works and what the problems are.
- Find out how many local people would be interested in a car club, either because they have a spare vehicle or because they would like to manage without one.
- See how other communities have successfully encouraged lift-sharing and car clubs.
- Plan and launch a range of options that seem best suited to our local community.
We can’t do all this ourselves – it’s too big. If you can help us then please contact us info@chalcan.org.uk