Car-sharing and car club concepts look set to receive Government funding under its integrated transport strategy.

The Motorists Forum, a sub-group of the Commission for Integrated Transport, has commissioned studies into the feasibility of the schemes. Car clubs hold great opportunities for daily rental companies - Avis is already involved in schemes in Oxford and Sutton, while Budget was behind the first car club in Edinburgh. The clubs allow their members to hire cars by the hour or day, using personalised key fobs to open and start the club cars that have access to dedicated parking bays in city centres.

Car sharing programmes can play a role in green commuter schemes. Consultants at the Institute for Transport Studies in Leeds have been studying both car sharing and car clubs and will present their findings to the Motorists Forum within the next fortnight.

Any motorist who travels fewer than 6,000 miles a year could benefit from selling their car and participating in a car club, according to Baroness Ros Scott, vice-chairman of the Local Government Authority and a member of the Motorists Forum. She said that car clubs could make a marginal difference to traffic volumes in Edinburgh, where one third of the people who joined the car club sold their own cars. (November 13, 2001)