Liverpool’s Car Club is proving to be very popular with city centre motorists who have clocked up thousands of miles of driving in the pay-by-the hour scheme.
The scheme, operated by City Car Club, was launched in October of last year. In its first four months 150 members signed up to join the club, made 750 bookings and travelled over 10,500 miles.
The Liverpool club started with a fleet of seven low emission cars and one van, which was added in January. It consists of several Toyota Aygos and a Toyota Yaris Hybrid which operates as an electric vehicle, reducing emissions.
It is estimated that, because of the use of the low emission vehicles, 0.21 fewer metric tonnes of carbon have been released into the atmosphere.
Councillor Tim Moore, cabinet member for transport and climate change, said: “These are impressive figures in terms of the use of the cars and as a result, the reduction in pollution.
“Most of the journeys are for short distances around the city centre or to nearby locations so to clock up this amount of travel in the first few months is phenomenal and proves the popularity of the initiative.
“We have been told that our car club is on track to exceed the size of long established car clubs in other major cities in terms of number of vehicles, their usage and booking levels
“It’s not just city centre residents who can benefit, an estimated 50% of commuters use their car to get into work and with this scheme, I am hopeful that more people will use public transport knowing they can use the City Car Club cars for business purposes throughout the day.
“It makes travel much more flexible and adds to the choice available to motorists – it is a scheme which shows great benefits to both motorists and the environment.”
North West City Car Club regional manager, Rebecca Bird said “City Car Club is delighted with the response from businesses and individuals in the first few months of operation in Liverpool. The savings the service creates are very welcome, as is the convenience of having cars and vans available 24/7 to hire by the hour.”
It is planned to expand the club to 20 vehicles by 2015
Car Club Facts
• The vehicles are based at;
– Moorfields (two cars, one van)
– Old Hall Street (one car)
– Brook Street (one car)
– Old Haymarket (two cars)
– Victoria Street car park (one car)
• City Car Club operates in 16 other UK cities, has 700 plus vehicles and 29,000 members who make 200,000 bookings every year.
