Case Study Summaries - Richard Armitage Transport Consultancy ...

MAKING CAR SHARING AND CAR CLUBS WORK CASE STUDY SUMMARIES
2.25 The Transport Change Forum, with a core membership of five or six, meets once a fortnight
to discuss travel planning issues on site.
User Perceptions
2.26 The two staff interviewed are both car sharers (with other partners). The priority car parking
area for car sharers is seen as the prime reason most staff had joined the car sharing
scheme. Car parking had been a serious problem on site with many staff complaining about
the lack of car parking and about congestion on the Business Park caused by Barclaycard
employees 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 by
colleagues since the introduction of the car sharing scheme. They both travelled in with their
car share partner, but travelled home by bus, as they did not finish work at the same time as
their respective car share partners.
2.28 One of the interviewees said that she estimated she was able to bank an additional 20
minutes per day on flexitime (almost 10 working days per year), because her journey time to
work by car was so much shorter than by public transport. She also estimated that her car
share partner probably also banked an additional 5-10 minutes per day (almost five working
days 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 car
park.
2.29 One interviewee estimated that she saved around £5.00 per week on bus fares, whilst the
other interviewee did not think that she made any financial saving by car sharing, since she
had to pay towards the cost of her outward journey by car and pay for her bus journeys
home.
2.30 Neither interviewee had used the Liftshare service to find their partners; they had both been
approached by colleagues directly. One of the women said that as a non-driver she did not
think it was appropriate to ask for a lift as she could not reciprocate. Both women reported
some 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 the
car sharing car park had been the main incentive for people to car share. A number of staff
had 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. They
had ignored it, thinking that it did not apply to them because they used public transport. They
both thought that more feedback on the success of the scheme would act as an incentive to
other staff to try it.
2.33 The interviewees thought that the two major incentives that would encourage people to car
share 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 car
parking pressure was at its worst, some staff would take half a day off following a hospital or
GP appointment, rather than come in and search around for a space to park.
Final V1.1, Dec. 2004 - 11 -