Car-sharing: how sharing our cars within Harwell can save money, benefit the environment and make Harwell streets more pleasant.
The RAC says that cars are only used 3.5% of the time – but most families need to own at least one. Emily Kerr has set up a car-sharing group in her area of Oxford, where neighbours make their cars available to each other via a platform called Hiyacar, for a fee which covers cost. Insurance is included and it’s easy to book via the app. Sharing cars means that people who don’t need a car very often don’t need to own one, and those who do own one can offset the costs of ownership.
Subsequent to the meeting, this article appeared in the Oxford Mail on 8th Oct 2022
Car sharing is creating safer streets in Oxford
Emily Kerr is the founder of a car-sharing campaign group called ShareOurCars; she is also a Green Party Councillor for St Mary’s Ward in East Oxford.
Here, on behalf of Cyclox, she looks at how sharing cars can save money and help make our cities nicer spaces.
A year ago, I set up a car-sharing scheme in my neighbourhood in East Oxford.
Neighbours make their cars available to other verified local drivers via an app called Hiyacar, which sorts out the insurance and booking, and they get a fee for doing so. It’s like ‘Airbnb for cars’.
It turns out that Oxford is one of the UK’s top cities for car-sharing, alongside London.
We have a relatively low car ownership across the city (in my ward, it’s less than 50%) and for many people, it’s quicker, cheaper and easier to get around by bike or bus and to rent the occasional car club car. But the UK is some way behind Europe.
Cities like Berlin, Paris, Stockholm and Milan have more than triple the number of shared cars per inhabitant. However, it’s a trend which is forecast to grow.
With the current cost of living crisis, many people are realising that the £4k average cost of annual car ownership isn’t sustainable. It works out at around £10-15 per day (including depreciation) and is used just 3.5% of the time (according to the RAC). With only 35% of car owners using their cars for commuting, and a trend towards working from home, experts predict that car-pooling and car-sharing are likely to rise. Indeed, private car ownership has decreased slightly over the past two years, for the first time in a century.
I’ve spoken to a number of people who have recently sold cars and switched to using a shared car when they need one, and there are a few common themes as to why people have made the shift: saving money, saving the hassle of car ownership, and benefitting the environment. There are a number of ways people have managed it: spending more time in the local community, cycling more, sharing lifts, getting the occasional taxi. Everyone said that once they’d sold their car they used one less.
The car-sharing scheme I set up is still going strong; we have a WhatsApp group where people can ask to borrow a car, or they can contact owners directly via the app. Many users also use Co-wheels, and it’s reassuring knowing that there are a load of shared cars available if needed. Drivers are particularly interested in borrowing EVs. At the moment I’m speaking to a lot of rural communities about setting up their own local sharing schemes to help families avoid the need for a second car, these towns and villages are often too small to have any organised car-clubs so this type of peer-to-peer lending is a new way of looking at the car-sharing economy.
Car-sharing makes sense for many families, but it can also significantly improve streets in Oxford – fewer cars parked on our narrow streets make it safer and easier for pedestrians, allow emergency vehicles to pass and less space for cars means more space for people and trees.
To create a viable alternative to private car ownership for everyone, we need a high density of cars available for drivers to borrow – a shared car on every corner.
The more people share, the more we can make that happen.Co-wheels are putting 30 more cars into Oxford in the next year: each one can take up to 20 private cars off the roads.
And if you own a private car, you can make some money and help increase car-sharing right now by making it available for others to borrow when you’re not using it via an app like Hiyacar, Karshare, or Turo.
(Photo from the Oxford Mail)
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