Figures produced by the UK’s leading car-sharing website liftshare, winner of one of this year's Eurostar Ashden Ashden Awards for Sustainable Travel, show that car sharing is becoming the natural choice of travel for cost–conscious commuters.
National liftshare Week at the beginning of October had a record-breaking impact on the number of commuters asking others going their way to car-share with them.
liftshare CEO Ali Clabburn says: “For us, this really underlines the shift in driving behaviour happening across the UK; and a real step-change in public awareness of just how easy, fun and popular it is to share lifts – not to mention the typical commuter saving on average £987 and a tonne of CO2 very year!”
Some 51% more ‘request to share’ messages for daily journeys were sent by the website's members during the fortnight around liftshare Week from 1-5 October, compared to the same period during last year’s campaign, which was also record-breaking.
This amounts to more than one share request being sent between members every minute of every working day throughout the fortnight.
liftshare was one of two winners of the first ever Eurostar Ashden Awards for Sustainable Travel on 30 May 2012. Its £15,000 prize money has helped it get its message out even further.
Says Ali: “Thanks to our Ashden Award money, we have been able to get a great new video made, which we launched in time for liftshare Week, and to do some Google advertising over the fortnight, which we’ve not had the budget to do before.
“Our Communications Director was also able to take on an intern to help her with the huge number of things she does to get the message out as widely as possible. Our award money also funded our £250 prize for a randomly selected member who sent a ‘request to share’ message during the fortnight. This encouraged members to contact others going their way.
liftshare staff were guests of Olympics sponsor Eurostar before the Paralympics Opening Ceremony at the end of August, where they met ITV Meridian. The result was news coverage across 8 counties in East Anglia.
Says Ashden Founder Director Sarah Butler-Sloss: “It is great to see liftshare go from strength to strength and I’m thrilled that their Ashden Award has played a small part in this. liftshare is leading the way in the UK in showing that car sharing provides a cleaner, greener and cheaper way to travel.”
Nicolas Petrovic, Eurostar Chief Executive, says: “liftshare impressed the judges with their innovative approach to promoting car-sharing to win the first Eurostar Ashden Award for Sustainable Travel, so it’s fantastic to see the difference the prize money is making. Car sharing is an easy way to reduce the environmental impact of travel and liftshare’s efforts to promote it are invaluable.”
Ashden is now seeking entries for the 2013 Eurostar Ashden Awards for Sustainable Travel; the deadline is Tuesday 23 October.
