Interest in car sharing up 50% in 2008
Added: (Tue Jan 13 2009)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
The British public are embracing Car Sharing as one means of dealing with the credit crunch, and reducing their carbon footprint at the same time.
Figures released by National CarShare, the free online UK car sharing website, indicate a significant increase in interest in car sharing on the part of the UK travelling public over the last year.
In the course of 2008, the average number of new visits to the web site at www.nationalcarshare.co.uk increased by 50% and the total number of pages viewed more than doubled from 56,000 to over 126,000 indicating that the people who did visit the web site were there for a serious purpose.
For the second year in succession the majority of new visitors to NCS arrived via a Search Engine such as Google, further proof that more and more people are seeking out ways to help their finances and help the planet.
“We are currently welcoming an average of 60 new visitors a day,” Alan Butters, spokesman for NCS told us, “which is very impressive when you consider that, because National CarShare has no income whatsoever, we do no advertising or marketing at all to promote the NCS free service. We even received 17 visits on Christmas Day, so I hope they got fixed up with the lift they were looking for.”
“With over 20,000 new people a year considering car sharing, if only half of them find a lift on a regular basis the savings in CO2 will be spectacular,” Alan added.
“A regular commuter driving 100 miles per week deposits one and a half tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere per year; so if just 1000 NCS users fit into that category we will have facilitated the saving of 1,500 tonnes of CO2!”
Registering to use the National CarShare web site is completely free of charge, and the web site carries no advertising.
www.nationalcarshare.co.uk
- ENDS -
Contact Details
Alan Butters
Home Office: 01202 698807
Mobile: 07905 396056
National CarShare
PO Box 6311
Bournemouth
Dorset
BH11 0AW
Tel: 0871 8718 880
Fax: 0871 8718 881
Email: alan.butters@nationalcarshare.co.uk
http://www.nationalcarshare.co.uk
NOTES FOR EDITORS
The National CarShare online lift-sharing service (www.nationalcarshare.co.uk) has been developed and maintained by private funding for over 10 years as a free service to the UK travelling public and to the environment as a whole, saving thousands of tonnes of CO2 emissions in the process.
We’d like to keep it as a free resource for individuals, businesses and groups, and we’d also like to introduce new features that embrace the latest IT and communications technologies to make usage even more attractive and flexible. The only obstacle is that, because the service is absolutely free, National CarShare has no income from its users, and no other revenue to fund ongoing development.
We are therefore in the process of seeking a commercial sponsor - one large enough to operate a dedicated bespoke Car Sharing Scheme as a viable cost-saving project in its own right, as well as at the same time driving down its carbon footprint.
This implemented, the sponsor would have the wider opportunity of promoting its brand and services to the whole business and public sector communities, nationally and internationally, by offering similar schemes free of charge to selected applicants.
A copy of our sponsorship proposal document is available on request.
12 January 2009.