Search
Close this search box.
Sign up for our weekly Newsletter

Car clubs get pat on the back for cleaning up cities and towns

City Car Club
Clubbing it: Car clubs in urban areas are good idea say Government researchers

Share

4 April 2012

Clubbing it: Car clubs in urban areas are good idea say Government researchers

Author: Robin Roberts

Getting in the club is good for your health, according to researchers.

The Transport Research Laboratory has just given the thumbs up to the growing number of car clubs in London which has led to an overall reduction in emissions because renters use cleaner and newer models than individual members might buy and also found they tend to cover fewer miles.

The Government researchers poured over data collected by Carplus for the neighbourhood rental schemes.

The analysis shows that, on average, members of car clubs report substantially lower levels of household car use than the average London household with at least one full car license holder. Those who have just joined the car club are asked about their pre-joining travel behaviour, and, on average, this is also reported to involve substantially greater household car use than for established members.

In addition, car club vehicles tend to be considerably newer and cleaner than the average private car. Consequently, average estimations of emissions of CO2, Nox and PM10 from car use by households with established London car club members are less than half of the equivalent emissions estimations for London households with at least one full car license holder, or for the pre-joining household car use by those who have recently joined.

To establish the robustness of these results, different sub-groups of car club users were considered. This shows that, after joining, on average, there are increases in car use by non-car-owning households, and by households whose personal car ownership also increases.

However, these increases are relatively small compared to the large average reductions in household car use by those who reduce their household car ownership – meaning that the overall average changes calculated seem robust.

In total, about 30% of car club members report reducing their household car ownership after joining a car club, and about 30%, including a proportion of those who dispose of a car, report that they would otherwise have purchased a vehicle.

The car club schemes can work well for companies who have a small fleet and who want to mitigate their business car tax.

Share this article

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Reddit
Email

Want more motoring news?

Sign up here for our free weekly serving of motoring.

Sign up here for our free weekly serving of motoring.

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

Latest news

Top