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Drive To Put Sheffield In Pole Position
March 2007
Sheffield City Council is launching two new schemes that will provide a simple and effective alternative to the growing number of journeys in the city by single occupant cars. Car Sharing and Car Club are two new separate initiatives that will provide more travel choice for the city.
Both schemes that are about making better use of the car - linking in with travel plans, travel choice and congestion or environment issues. Car Club is about by-the-hour car rental, whereas Car Share is about matching up people to share journeys in their own cars.
The South Yorkshire Car Share website is already up and running - www.carsharesouthyorkshire.com.
It matches up people from across the county to share journeys according to their route. Organisations can also set up private groups to enable employees to share journeys to or from work by car.
Car Share South Yorkshire has been driven by Sheffield City Council through the group formally known as South Yorkshire TravelWise. The National Statistics Office suggests that if every person who regularly drives to work on their own car shared for one day a week, the number of car journeys would be reduced by 12 to15%, having a major impact on air quality, congestion and health.
Sheffield is also soon to launch its own car club. The Sheffield Car Club, operated by WhizzGo, is due to be launched in early April and will provide its members with quick and easy access to a car for short-term hire. Members can then make use of car club vehicles as and when they need them, on a pay-as-you-go basis, freeing up users from the hassle and expense of car ownership.
For businesses they provide a cost effective alternative to managing a standing car pool and can remove the need for car commuting to work by making a car available for hire from a handy, nearby location.
The Car Club will be available from 3rd April 2007.
The development of the Sheffield Car club is integrated within the Local Transport Plan, Sheffield Development Framework and the Council’s Corporate Travel Plan. It links to the county - wide Travelwise and Care4Air initiatives and has a headline objective of contributing to improving air quality.