With congestion continuing to rise on Britain’s roads a number of solutions have been proposed, raising tax being the main one. However, every day in the UK there are over 10 million empty seats on the roads. Worse still, the vast majority of these empty seats are during the rush hour, with average occupancy for commuting only 1.2. The solution appears to be simple – car sharing. This is further supported by recent research which found that over 50% of commuters would car share on their way to work if they could find someone suitable to share with.

Car sharing has often been talked about but only ever considered to be a small scale solution, unlikely to have a significant effect on congestion levels. Again, the evidence suggests otherwise. A 25% increase in car occupancy levels would result in the number of commuting cars on the road falling by 21%. Put another way, if everyone shared a journey to work just once a week then the effect would be similar. » Read more: Car Sharing – A Neglected Solution?