Set up in 1997, liftshare.com is a social enterprise with the initial aim of making more efficient use of the millions of empty car seats on UK roads by encouraging and enabling more people to share their car journeys.
Founder, Ali Clabburn, first saw car-sharing in action as an 18 year-old travelling through Germany in his gap year. He discovered a network of car sharing bureaux at major train stations that provided a cheaper way of getting around than the train or bus. He immediately saw the benefits and on his return to England tried to find a similar system. But there was none. Ali was amazed. “It seemed such a simple solution to overcome not just costly travel, but congestion and pollution as well,” he says. Like many students, Ali travelled frequently between his home town (Norwich) and his university town (Bristol). “The train was so expensive and I knew that someone must be making the same journey in a car who would really appreciate being able to share the costs. It was a whole market that no one was servicing.”
During his second year at Bristol, Ali took his first steps towards setting up liftshare. “I talked to friends, family and advisors, and found ways of piloting the idea without spending any money,” explains Ali. “Money was something I didn’t have.” It was around this time that the internet was beginning to take off and Ali saw its potential. “I knew we couldn’t copy the German model of liftsharing – opening up offices at railway stations would have meant a high investment for no guaranteed return – but the internet meant we could set the system up virtually for free,” he says.
He may not have had much money, but he did have lots of friends who believed in his idea and were willing to help him out: a computer scientist friend built the initial website as a project for part of his university course; someone produced marketing materials for free; and a small band of friends helped him launch lift-share at six Freshers’ Fairs throughout the country, including Bristol. He remembers the first Freshers’ Fair. “First thing in the morning we charged people £10 to join the system. Then by lunchtime we were charging £5 and by the end of the day we were offering it for free. Students loved the idea but they didn’t want to part with a tenner.” Lots of people signed up, but Ali was left with one important question: How do I finance this?
Money was desperately needed for development. Ali applied for government funding, but didn’t get anywhere. He worked in the post office from 4am until lunchtime and then worked on liftshare in the afternoon. Two work experience students built the next version of the website and the following year they promoted it at even more Freshers’ Fairs. Lots more people joined and more and more people were getting matches. But still no income.
Then in 1999, Glaston-bury Festival got in touch with Ali. Thousands of people descend on Glastonbury every summer for the festival and this was causing huge congestion on the local roads, which in turn upset local people and meant festival goers were spending a lot of their time sitting in traffic jams. The organisers asked liftshare to build them a branded carshare website so that people travelling to the festival could share lifts. It was a huge success and has saved an estimated 10,000 car journeys to the festival each year. It was also a breakthrough for liftshare. It showed how it could make money and high-lighted the importance of finding people with a common link. This has served as the basis of liftshare’s business model: allowing the public to sign up free to the national car-sharing system, while earning revenue from individual clients who pay a one-off sum and a regular licence fee from organisations for setting up a system for their employees or customers.
Word began to spread and then in 2000, liftshare won its first big commercial contract, providing a liftshare system for a group of businesses in south Gloucestershire. Since then the organisation has grown substantially and now works with almost 1,000 clients across the UK, including local authorities, hospitals, universities, schools and communities, building branded and private carshare systems. All kinds of organisations have come on board, from football clubs to corporate giants like Barclaycard and British Telecom.
Bringing People Together
It is estimated that the system saves approximately 31 million car miles per annum and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by over 10,000 tonnes per year. But it is not just the environment that has benefited. It has made a difference to people’s lives as well. For those living in rural areas, where public transport is poor or non-existent, it has provided a lifeline. “They use the system for everyday things like visiting the doctor, shopping or going to church,” explains Ali. It has quite lit-erally brought people together. One liftsharer was amazed to meet their next door neighbour though the site.
I asked one member, Steve Stoodley, how he uses the scheme. “I first started liftsharing in 2005 when working in Bristol and met with two folks through the liftshare site. My main reason was to save money. This arrangement went OK, although it did add quite a bit of time to my journey. Then I moved job to Exeter in October 2006. The good news is that I am still in touch with the first people and if I ever go to Bristol I still share with them.
“I now use liftshare in quite a com-plex arrangement with a number of different people but it works very well as there are only very small diversions from my own route, so I do not end up spending much more time travelling.”
Steve says the good things about sharing are: the obvious saving of money; helping the environment and making friends, who he will no doubt keep in touch with even if the liftshare arrangement does end for what ever reason. “I would highly recommend it.”
I asked another member, Charley Downey, the general manager of a manufacturing company, what the wider benefits of liftshare are for her: “Liftshare has been a really positive experience for me. I used to work in Leeds city centre five miles from home and used public transport. I questioned the logic of watching streams of cars belching out emissions in stationary traffic, each with one person in it, and frequently sat in smug satisfaction passing them all in the bus lane whilst I read the paper. When I moved jobs to progress my career, I found myself with a 25 mile commute each way from Leeds to York, and without a public transport option! I wanted to reduce the wear and tear on my car and mitigate against the ever-increasing cost of fuel, so I signed up for liftshare.
“I found a partner quite quickly and, whilst the economic reasons for joining have proven to save me over £100 per month, there have been many additional benefits I hadn’t considered at the time. Membership of liftshare has formed part of what we are doing at home to reduce our family’s impact on our planet. As General Manager of a manufacturing company dedicated to sustainable and environmentally friendly operations, it has enhanced my credibility with customers, suppliers, and staff, and helped me introduce a wider sustainable transport policy at work, including the ‘Bike 2 Work’ scheme for my employees.
“Finally, it has reduced my stress levels in commuting, as my liftshare partner and I share the driving. I have met an interesting and friendly person of a similar age to me that I would otherwise not have met. This has given me good company on the journey and made the commute much more enjoyable. We help each other out when either of our vehicles needs to go to the garage. I’ve introduced her to Freecycle, and we even share cuttings for our gardens!
“For me, there have been no disadvantages to liftsharing. I would strongly recommend it to anyone. It’s been part of a wider attitude shift for me, as I’m starting to view anyone who drives an otherwise empty car to work without considering a bicycle, public transport or liftsharing as selfish – after all, they’re not considering the environment and they’re hogging all that road space at peak times!”
The average person who carshares on his or her daily commute is saving themselves about £1,000 a year in expenses (petrol plus wear and tear) and one tonne of CO2 emissions – and a lot of people really enjoy the companion-ship and often make great friends.
Emergency Planning
After the bombings in London in July 2005, liftshare helped thousands of people get home when Transport for London posted an emergency news flash on its website encouraging people to use the service. “The feedback afterwards was amazing,” says Ali. “People emailed to say: ‘What a great idea, what a brilliant service. But why haven’t we heard of you before?’”
“Three years ago, carsharing wasn’t a transport option or talked about as part of government transport policy. Now carsharing is up there among the top two or three issues. We made the case for it and made it happen.”
Conclusion
It is obvious that liftshare are inno-vative with their capacity to combine technology with meeting people’s needs and reducing carbon. They also build community networks. It will be interesting to see what else they choose to develop and the unexpected benefits to their schemes
www.liftshare.com
The fully illustrated version of this article appears in PM57 and can be purchased as a back issue.
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