Clubbing together to help share the costs of motoring

There's nothing quite like taking delivery of a brand-new motor. The just-off-the-forecourt smell, leafing through the owner's manual, smiling out the front window at your new "baby", and secret trips to the shop to buy yet another litre of milk (just in case).

Those of you with 07 plates in the drive will know what I'm talking about.

But wouldn't it be nice to have the benefits of car ownership without the costs? Well, maybe there is a way. In the United Kingdom thousands of city-based motorists have done just that by joining car clubs where they have the use of a car when they need it, usually for an hourly fee, but without the costs of ownership.

Now authorities in Ireland, including in Belfast and Cork, are examining whether similar clubs could be set up here.

They were first introduced in Switzerland in 1987 and operate across Europe, including 27 cities in the UK.

So how does it work? Drivers can book a car for short trips lasting only half an hour, or for a number of days.

Bookings can be made in advance on the web or by phone or can be booked minutes before a journey. Most clubs require membership and a refundable deposit.

Once booked, the customer can pick up the car from a designated car parking space. The door is unlocked using a swipe card and the car's immobiliser is disabled by entering a pin code. From then the driver is charged per hour and/or per mile.

Members are usually invoiced monthly for their use of the cars in the club but do not pick up the costs of insurance or maintenance.

UK-based charity Carplus is conducting a feasibility study for Travelwise NI, which is part of the Roads Service of Northern Ireland, to see if a club can be set up in Belfast. Carplus co-director Paul Igoe believes there can be real benefits.

"The reason car clubs are so environmentally useful is that people who join car clubs begin to appreciate the cost of motoring as against other transport choices," he says.

"So instead of using the car as a default option, they'll use it when it's the best option or the best mode for a given journey and they'll use other modes of travel for most other journeys."

In the UK there are more than 11,000 people using 450 cars in about 30 clubs.

In Greenwhich, Igoe says, new members are reducing mileage by an average of 65 per cent and saving about £1,500 (€2,200) a year, even factoring in the extra cost of public transport they pay for in the absence of owning a car.

A recent survey of UK car club members showed that 17 per cent of members gave up at least one household car. Some 41 per cent said they had joined the club rather than buy a car.

These are pretty much uncharted waters in Ireland. A car club is in the planning part of an eco-village project in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, and a pilot project was set up for a time in Dublin 10 years ago.

Graham Lightfoot of Mendes, is working on the Tipperary and Cork projects and was involved in the defunct Dublin experiment, in collaboration with the Dublin Transportation Office.

"It worked OK, but the insurance companies didn't understand what we were trying to do," Lightfoot explains. The project involved three cars parked in Sandyford and Clontarf Road and had about 30 members. The club was on a small scale and lasted for 15 months. After that, the original insurance company refused to provide cover when the cars were parked, only when they were on hire.

But Cork City Council has not been deterred, and is determined to see a car club operating in the city before long. Sarah Danaher, who is heading the project for the council, says they first tried to encourage car pooling among council staff, where people living in nearby areas shared lifts to work.

"But there was a very poor uptake. People were concerned about insurance, people just preferred to have their own independence," she says.

But from the idea of car sharing, clubs grew.

"We had some funding available from the department and we wanted to carry out a car sharing feasibility study.

"We are hoping we will have the results of the feasibility study to present to councillors and to the public around about March," she adds.

"We are really hoping that this will result in a car share club on the ground. We don't want this to be just another report on a shelf. We want to have something concrete. We are already looking at locations. Normally you have the car close to where people are living or working."

Brian Moreland, head of Travelwise NI, is also eager. "Roads Service was very keen to take this piece of work forward in order to establish if a car club would be feasible for Belfast and other parts of the province," he says.

Of course, car clubs will not be to everybody's liking. The convenience of having your own car parked outside and a set of keys on the sideboard is hard to match, and there is no accounting for people's desire to own their own cars, particularly new ones, even those who live in or near city centres.

Basically, people like to own, drive and enjoy their own set of wheels and are prepared, in their many thousands, to meet the fixed and operating costs.

"When people say they wouldn't join, they usually use the exuse, 'I want my own car'," explains Igoe.

And to these he says: "Fine, do it, but be aware of the costs, both financial and environmental. We are not anti-car. We just want them to be used responsibly when they are the best mode for a given journey."