In Great Britain, there are 32 million personally owned cars but only 31 million drivers. Not only is the number of cars owned increasing, but households pay out over £4,500 annually per car to own and run these. However, these cars will only be in use for 4% of their lives. The remaining 96% of the car’s time will be idle and parked. Over a car’s life, this means that individuals pay £34,500 to not use the car they own. Even finding a place for these cars to stand idle is fast becoming a difficulty in itself. With limited space in cramped metropolitan and residential areas, Great Britain also spends £1.2bn per year in parking fines.
What if the concept of personal car ownership no longer existed? What if for the remaining 96% of a car’s life this is used by a different person? What if car owners only had to pay for the 4% of the car’s life in which they are physically using the vehicle?
A clear starting point to reducing personal ownership of cars is to look at the alternatives. There are the obvious options of public transport - including buses and trains - but these do not offer the freedom of choice for locality and timing for travel. The emergence of “carpooling” could address this. Traditional car rental companies including Enterprise and Avis now offer options where individuals can rent cars on an hourly as well as daily basis. This takes all hassle out of car ownership - you don’t even have to fuel up at the end. This can keep the enjoyment of driving alive. Enterprise even has agreements with local councils to provide free parking for these vehicles. Carpooling has shown to be a growing area with estimates of 18 million users in 2025.
However, if consumers want the ease of getting straight from A to B without the responsibility of driving, the development of driverless cars could satisfy this need. nuTonomy, a US tech start-up, launched the first robo-taxi service in Singapore in 2016 with other US based companies keen to develop this technology too including Uber, Telsa, and Lyft.
These assumptions are predicated on consumer habits remaining consistent post 2020. Following covid-19 and the global pause in movement and travel that has been experienced; will the appetite for a culture for constant movement continue? Will reduced car ownership happen naturally as more households work from home as their status quo?
In either case, let us look at the advantages and disadvantages that a society with no personal car ownership could give rise to. In this 5 part series we will consider the effects on the environment, health, and opportunities for households to repurpose cash spent currently on cars.
We will also consider what could be done with the additional space if fewer car parks and roads are needed. Finally, we will consider what might be lost with households no longer owning cars to determine what steps ought to be put in place before Great Britain is ready for a car free society.
Charlotte Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2020
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