Making Car Sharing and Car Clubs Work - Case ... - The Civil Service

MAKING CAR SHARING AND CAR CLUBS WORKCASE STUDY SUMMARIES2.25 The Transport Change Forum, with a core membership of five or six, meets once a fortnightto discuss travel planning issues on site.User Perceptions2.26 The two staff interviewed are both car sharers (with other partners). The priority car parkingarea for car sharers is seen as the prime reason most staff had joined the car sharingscheme. Car parking had been a serious problem on site with many staff complaining aboutthe lack of car parking and about congestion on the Business Park caused by Barclaycardemployees parking on the road network around the Business Park.2.27 The interviewees had both previously travelled to work by bus, but had been offered lifts bycolleagues since the introduction of the car sharing scheme. They both travelled in with theircar share partner, but travelled home by bus, as they did not finish work at the same time astheir respective car share partners.2.28 One of the interviewees said that she estimated she was able to bank an additional 20minutes per day on flexitime (almost 10 working days per year), because her journey time towork by car was so much shorter than by public transport. She also estimated that her carshare partner probably also banked an additional 5-10 minutes per day (almost five workingdays per year), because she could quickly find a parking space close to the front entrance,rather than driving around the site looking for a space and finding one in the furthest carpark.2.29 One interviewee estimated that she saved around £5.00 per week on bus fares, whilst theother interviewee did not think that she made any financial saving by car sharing, since shehad to pay towards the cost of her outward journey by car and pay for her bus journeyshome.2.30 Neither interviewee had used the Liftshare service to find their partners; they had both beenapproached by colleagues directly. One of the women said that as a non-driver she did notthink it was appropriate to ask for a lift as she could not reciprocate. Both women reportedsome reluctance from colleagues to provide information to an external agency.2.31 Both interviewees said that word-of-mouth and on-site observation of the advantages of thecar sharing car park had been the main incentive for people to car share. A number of staffhad been sceptical about the scheme at first, but once it was seen to work, more staff joined.2.32 Both interviewees said that they had not been very aware of the car sharing promotion. Theyhad ignored it, thinking that it did not apply to them because they used public transport. Theyboth thought that more feedback on the success of the scheme would act as an incentive toother staff to try it.2.33 The interviewees thought that the two major incentives that would encourage people to carshare were saving time and money. Cash-based incentives might help.2.34 One of the interviewees said that before the car sharing scheme was introduced, when carparking pressure was at its worst, some staff would take half a day off following a hospital orGP appointment, rather than come in and search around for a space to park.Final V1.1, Dec. 2004 - 11 -