New report to celebrate National liftshare Day reveals significance of the car passenger
13/06/2005

The average car commuter drives 19 miles a day. Cutting that by half through car sharing would save 648kg of carbon dioxide over one year, the same as that absorbed by 216 trees.

A new report, published today by liftshare.com and Transport 2000 to coincide with National liftshare Day, reveals that car-sharing could significantly reduce congestion and emissions of carbon dioxide.

The report, Car passengers on the UK's roads: an analysis , reveals that travelling as a passenger is the 2 nd most common form of transport in the UK , accounting for 30% of all miles travelled in 2002-2003. This is more miles than were covered on foot, bike and train combined.

The report goes on to show that a doubling in car-passengers, assuming that drivers are converted to passengers, could result in a 55% reduction in trips made as a car driver and a 59% reduction in miles driven.

A doubling in car-passengers could also achieve a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 35 million tonnes - the same amount as would be absorbed by 12 billion trees a year or an area of trees the size of the UK , France and Germany . This alone would enable the UK to achieve 82% of its target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Imogen Martineau, author of the report, says the findings are exciting from both a transport and environmental perspective:

“This research reveals that car-sharing has the potential to achieve significant reductions in both congestion and emissions of carbon dioxide. I hope that the findings will encourage the Government to consider car-sharing as an equal to public transport and other modes of sustainable travel and will provide investment to reflect this.”

Stephen Joseph, Executive Director of Transport 2000 said,

“Car-sharing should be actively promoted as a “quick win” to tackle congestion. If it was made easier to car-share, more people would do it, and they'd find it would save them money. Commuting and the school run could be targeted – there are already successful examples where this has worked. Promoting and maybe increasing the allowances available could make all the difference in getting people car-sharing.”

The research concludes with some recommendations to the Government about how car-sharing might be encouraged with only a small amount of investment.

Comments

There are currently no comments posted for this article.

Comments are temporarily disabled.

Other news stories