I
Accessing cars. Different ownership and use choices.
Author: Dr Sally Cairns for the RAC Foundation.
Dr Cairns is a Doctor of philosophy (Geography) and a BA (Honours) Geography.
Foreword: Prof. Steven Glaister of the RACF
Foreword.
‘…the cost of running a car has soared way above inflation. Maintenance, insurance, and of course fuel, all contribute to make conventional car ownership a burden on the wallet.’
But how poor would we and society be without private motoring? Choice of work outside walking, cycling and public transport distance? Travel to large retail hubs for cheaper food & goods? Cost of transporting family around locally or long distance? Savings in valuable time and costs over public transport; even when viable?
‘Very few of us would today claim to drive for pleasure – going out for a Sunday drive is a concept from a different century –‘
This comment now acknowledges that there’s no unnecessary driving. We do it because we must do it and have no choice.
‘…..motoring) is now the single biggest area of household spending, above even food, housing and heating, and recreation’
This confirms how crucial and essential it is. Why would we do it if we didn’t need to? It also confirms that the private motorist is supporting society at great personal cost and expense. However it could be cheaper. This costly report has come directly or indirectly from driver’s pockets. Far too many alleged road safety and motoring charities with agendas opposite to the aims of ordinary struggling motorists.
‘….but looking ahead there are forecasts that traffic will rise by a third by 2025, not least because of a large growth in the population. Clearly this is not good for the environment.’
Ministry of Guesswork alarmism. The car ownership explosion has happened and now peaked. There are already 2,3,4 & 5 car families. Much of the population growth is of the older generations and although people are driving longer, because they have to, many just stop driving so there is an assumption that the increased population are all drivers; they are not.
‘….meeting targets for cutting CO2 and preserving the financial wellbeing of the public.’
Here is the barrel being truly scraped. We must have CO2. Without CO2 society dies. Currently we are at an historic CO2 low of about 400ppm. The planet was at it’s most vigorous and vibrant at 1500ppm and below 200ppm we cease to exist. The current UK motor car emissions of CO2 are only about 0.4% of all man made CO2. Just raising this says much about the author and her report.
I have already discussed how the financial well being of the public is based on private motoring. Are we better off than we were 60 years ago? Undoubtedly and that is based on private motoring and car ownership.
**********************************
Executive summary v
‘….. This report examines a range of alternative ways to access cars other than by households simply owning and using their own vehicles – including renting vehicles, getting a lift and taking a taxi. Some or all of these alternative car options potentially offer a number of benefits for sustainable transport policy, such as:
• moving people away from habitual car use, and increasing the incentive for people to consider car use in conjunction with other modes;
‘Habitual’ car use? Is as silly as saying ‘Breathing, eating, drinking, going to work, vacuum cleaning, shopping is ‘Habitual’ This is an idea central to the purpose and object of this whole report and is palpable nonsense. It’s even in contradiction of the Foreword to this report.’ – going out for a Sunday drive is a concept from a different century –‘
• encouraging more efficient use of road space and/or parking land by reducing the space needed for cars, yielding benefits such as reduced congestion and improved streetscape in urban areas, and helping to improve quality of life;
In this bullet point are some worrying ideals. Clearly this report is about getting rid of private cars and presumably taking land from us. My frontage can park up to four cars; however, empty, the land is still there for my own private use. Is this to be taken from me? Are we to be regulated as to how much land we occupy with or without vehicles?
The aspiration ‘reduced congestion’ ‘improved streetscape’ is clear then. To take our cars from us.
‘Helping to improve quality of life’ Actually ignores that a higher life expectancy is a sure indication of society’s general health and that, without the private car, our quality of life would not be as good as it is.
• enabling people to become non-car-owners, to remain as non-car-owners for longer, or to reduce the number of cars in their household;
This bullet point is assuming that car ownership is an imposition and we need to be relieved of it.
Vi Car rental & car club schemes
In all cases, there are examples of successful schemes, and many report on substantial growth over time. Notably, there are approximately ten million car rents a year; 23% of all trips are travelled as a car passenger; and 28% of people report that they use a taxi or minicab at least once a month. liftshare, a national provider of car sharing matching services, reports that over 399,000 people have registered on its site, whilst Carplus reports that there are approximately 146,000 UK car club members (RAC Foundation expert seminar).
Of course there are many reasons why car owners will use taxis from time to time; drinking and using public transport having left the car at the start of the journey, are just two examples of taxi use by car owners. The car club and sharing registers need to be taken in the context of 32,000,000 drivers. So the foregoing information is really no more than a padding out of the report.
vii
'..fully loaded cars will still be less environmentally beneficial than walking, cycling or a fully loaded bus or train.'
This is an incredible remark. A fully loaded car, between four and seven people and their luggage is less environmentally beneficial than walking, cycling or a fully loaded bus or train. For a start, cycling and walking cannot fulfil the function of a fully loaded car moving loads long distances rapidly so the inclusion of them as a comparison is as silly as comparing an airliner with walking and cycling too.
But most buses and trains are not fully loaded most of the time and so the comparison must include the environmental impact of the whole network all of the time. The report seems to ignore the effect of empty public transport modes in the same context as it does for private cars?
‘..to consider the questions ‘what would people do otherwise?’ and ‘what did people do before these options existed?’. In many cases, the literature is remarkably silent on these two points.’
The answer is quite straight forward. People were more centralised and lived near to their work and families. They all had very local shopping parades for their essentials and local cottage hospitals too. They were very much at the mercy of their local shopkeeper’s pricing policy too. Now they must use large retail parks and super stores in order to keep their shopping bills down and so their car is very much part of their ability to earn and save money. This is an aspect completely ignored in Stephen Glaister’s foreword
-
Introduction P 12.
‘those unable to use a car may suffer various forms of social exclusion. There are a number of powerful arguments in favour of developing, as a society, in a way which is less dependent on cars. However, if cars are going to be an inevitable part of the transport mix, there are also various obvious flaws with the current paradigm of individualistic car ownership and use.’
All people, even those who do not drive, depend directly on many services that simply couldn’t operate without the private car. In many respects, those who do not bother to drive or run vehicles are unfair to those who do. All public and commercial transport depends on private cars to both provide their passengers and their staffing needs.
Introduction 2 P13
Inefficient vehicle choices:
‘…the current model means that people often buy vehicles which can fulfil the maximum requirements that they may have, as opposed to those for each trip. For example, they buy a vehicle which is large enough to seat four or five people, with enough space to accommodate the luggage for a family holiday, and which is able to travel at high speeds and for long distances. In practice, for the majority of trips, these specifications are higher than necessary. For example, according to the 2008 National Travel Survey (DfT, 2009a), 60% of journeys are made as a solo driver, average car occupancy is 1.6 people per vehicle, and 93% of car driver trips are less than 25 miles long. This model of car purchase works against the take-up of alternative vehicle technologies, in particular electric vehicles. In addition, larger, heavier vehicles use more fuel and take up more road space than smaller, lighter ones.’
This paragraph ignores that during the ownership of the vehicle there will be many times that a smaller vehicle simply will not be adequate. The assumption here is that all vehicles must run at capacity all the time. We could apply this principle to any vehicle. Horse drawn wagons and 40 Tonne goods vehicles. Not much point in telling their owners that they should be using something smaller because they are not fully laden most of the time.
So what if these multi use vehicles are only shifting 1 person 60% of the time? The use is about purpose, time, load and distance. Even when not at their best efficiency, if cycling and walking are not viable options and public transport is too slow and expensive, even these vehicles are very efficient.
What is the significance of 25 miles? It’s a long way to carry a bag of cement on a cycle or by walking and even if public transport was door to door, the cement wouldn’t be welcome on it anyway.
P14 • Inefficient land use: the current model means that large areas of land are dedicated to parking, with many vehicles being used for a relatively small proportion of the time. Again, this is a relatively inefficient use of space, and is a potential hindrance to designing attractive places to live, work, shop and so on. For example, Europcar (2010) report on research by OnePoll, involving interviews with 3,000 people living in British cities, which found that the average city dweller’s car is used for only 4.6 hours a week, meaning that their vehicle is parked for 97% of the time. Equally, low car occupancies represent a relatively inefficient use of road space.
Clearly this report is about getting rid of private cars and presumably taking land from us. My frontage can park up to four cars; however, empty, the land is still there for my own private use. Is this to be taken from me? Are we to be regulated as to how much land we occupy with or without vehicles?
‘…Again, this is a relatively inefficient use of space, and is a potential hindrance to designing attractive places to live, work, shop and so on.’
I live in a lovely area and we all have cars and garages. But to link working, living and shopping in one sentence is failing to acknowledge the present. The author is pining for the past, where no one travelled far for anything. Now people don’t live where they work and shop and their work isn’t where they shop,
…the average city dweller’s car is used for only 4.6 hours a week, meaning that their vehicle is parked for 97% of the time. Equally, low car occupancies represent a relatively inefficient use of road space.
The low car usage reflects the steps taken over many years to discourage car use in towns and cities. Expensive restricted parking, bus lanes, induced congestion by the removal of alternative routes and so on.
Intro 4 P15
• moving people away from habitual car use, and increasing the incentive for people to consider car use in conjunction with other modes;
Here, in one sentence is the objective of this 85 page report.
9 P20 Effects on vehicle choice:
'..Third, the average rental vehicle is only retained on fleet for seven months, meaning that the existence of the rental market potentially helps to keep to whole car market younger and cleaner than it would otherwise be, since most rental vehicles are then sold into the private car market.'
Is this woolly minded contradiction?, 'since most rental vehicles are then sold into the private car market'. Is that the private car market the report is seeking to reduce?
13 P 24 2.3.2
...Costs for participants Joining fees are typically £50–£100. Hourly hire rates typically start at £4–£5. Daily hire rates typically start at £30–£50. Costs tend to be higher for larger vehicles. Informal community clubs tend to have somewhat lower rates.
‘Daily hire rates typically start at £30–£50’ That’s up to £1500 per month plus fuel.
15 P26
In brief, then, the data suggest that car club vehicles are typically used for relatively low mileages, and that, in general, car club members travel relatively low mileages compared with a typical driver.
Yes of course they do. Otherwise Car Club wouldn’t be a viable option and they would be car owners instead; otherwise known as ‘Typical Drivers’.
51 P62
The ‘Park and Share’ site was launched at Aspects Leisure Park, Longwell Green, in 2003. It was intended to intercept commuters travelling on the A4174 to the North Fringe employment area. The council leased 200 spaces in an existing car park from the park landlords, new signing was put in, and there was extensive marketing. However, on average, the scheme attracted only two cars a day, and was subsequently discontinued. (It should perhaps be noted that the traffic impact assessment for the scheme by Atkins estimated that, typically, there were only 413 cars passing the site between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. heading to the North Fringe, meaning that the target market was always somewhat limited.)
Hardly a success story.
60 4.2.1. P71
The NTS provides some information on patterns and levels of taxi/minicab use (DfT, 2008). Specifically, in 2008, the average British person made 11 trips and travelled 54 miles by taxi/minicab each year
‘The average British person made 11 taxi trips each year’? I can’t recall my last taxi trip. About 660 million taxi trips a year? This isn’t a reflection of the average British person at all. Who has counted all these taxi trips?
72 5.2 P83
The implication is that, if alternative car options reduce car ownership levels, or help to prolong non-car-ownership, the environmental impacts are likely to be positive.
But what is the objective of environmental concerns? Longer life? Ease of living? Sustaining a large population? Happiness? With the motor car it is happening
77 5.3 P88
As already outlined, this paper has been based primarily on an informal assessment of the readily available national literature on this topic. It is clear that more information could be sought in order to flesh out the existing knowledge base.
Yes clearly!
