It may be the adult equivalent of the school bus, but there are practical benefits to car sharing that may make it an attractive prospect for your business.

It may be the adult equivalent of the school bus, but there are practical benefits to car sharing that may make it an attractive prospect for your business.

Investment and insurance company Legal & General promotes car sharing for staff at its Surrey offices. Spokesperson Rebecca Perry explains that with 2,500 employees, parking space is always at a premium. To deal with this, employees are issued permits that are only valid on four out of five working days. For the fifth day, they have to arrange to share their journey in.

‘As an incentive, car sharers get to park closer to the building and are able to get out of the car park more quickly in the evening, which is a great benefit with so many staff leaving at once,’ she explains. ‘In such a big company, it’s good to see people from opposite ends of the business, who otherwise might never have met, getting together. It helps to build a more positive company culture.’

Long and winding road
Stuart Whyte, director of the Association of Car Fleet Operators, says: ‘Companies
and their staff are just starting to recognise that there are benefits beyond simply raising their green credentials. The price of providing company cars is a major consideration and car-sharing can help to reduce those costs for a business.’

For staff, initiatives aimed at reducing the volume of traffic on the roads, like proposed motorway car share lanes such as the one on the M606 near Bradford, mean that sharing a journey can offer significant time-saving and cost benefits.

Expensive and infrequent public transport in more rural areas is also a problem that
can be alleviated by car sharing. Moreover, Whyte adds: ‘It will always be safer to have
a trusted colleague offer a lift home, rather than be left waiting on your own on a train station platform.’

The practicalities of establishing a car sharing pool often stand in the way, however. For instance, workers that depend on each other for lifts may end up leaving work at different times. Generally, it is not a lack of willingness that makes car sharing difficult,
but the varied work patterns of staff, so helping them to manage such an initiative
is key to making it work.