Transport Sharing Boosts Health, Wealth and Climate

Growing public involvement in schemes to share cars and bicycles is clearly good for the environment, but it also saves money and improves people’s health.

New research into how people’s habits change shows that everyone benefits from car-sharing schemes − apart from car manufacturers who suffer a loss of sales.

Car sharing is a growing social trend across Europe and North America and is expected to increase by 36% annually to 2020, especially in compact cities where people do not need a car every day but want to use one for family trips and holidays.

In the European Union, 72% of people live in cities and account for 70% of energy consumption, so car sharing could make a big contribution to reducing emissions as well as cutting air pollution.  The increasing use of phone apps to locate the nearest vehicle or bicycle in a sharing scheme means organisation has become cheaper and simpler.

Sprawling cities
Even in North America, where cities are more sprawling, research shows there were 23 car-share operators in the US in 2014.  They had 1.3 million members, sharing 19,115 cars.

In a survey conducted for the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California Berkeley, investigations into the habits of 9,500 car-sharers showed that a quarter of the participants had sold their cars, and another quarter had postponed purchase of a new one.

The researchers concluded that one shared car replaced between nine and 13 privately-owned cars.  For each family, this meant a 34%-41% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Another positive finding was that car-sharers made more use of public transport, bicycles and walking.  They saved money because of not having to pay out on car insurance, repairs and other costs.

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