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Potential for shared cars (car clubs)

The project explored the potential for car clubs (then termed "Neighbourhood Car Fleets") in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and in the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames. The project explored the socio-economic profile of various residential areas and considered attributes that would make them suited to the car club concept.

In the case of Richmond, the study included focus groups in the Richmond Hill area, and found considerable interest in the car club concept amongst residents.

The project included cooperation with Dr Steve Cousins at the Open University who developed an in-car meter capable of measuring the costs associated with travel in real time, and of allocating costs to individual drivers using a key counter system.

It is believed that this project was the first of its kind in the UK. The car club concept pre-dated this, however, and was first propounded by two economists at Loughborough University in the 1960s: Fischmann and Wabe.

The project in Richmond Hill got as far as recruiting members for the shared car scheme (see Flyer pdf) but ultimately was withdrawn because of technical difficulties with the metering system, and also car insurance issues.

(more to come)

LocationLondon England
Date(s)1984-7
Client(s)Boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea, and Richmond
Team(s)Tim Pharoah

keywords

Shared cars, car clubs, traffic reduction, sustainable transport