Sustainable travel in Wales achieves a milestone this month, as the final piece of the jigsaw was put in place for a nationwide, bi-lingual car-sharing scheme; thanks to Norfolk-based social enterprise, liftshare.
Until now, the country’s car-share websites have been only partly bi-lingual, and there was no scheme covering the north of the country. But on 5th November, a scheme was launched for north Wales and, supported by the Welsh Assembly Government, the four regions of Wales have had their sites,  which all link together, made completely bi-lingual.
There are already 8,500 members on the Welsh car-sharing network, and the four regional schemes all work together so that, if a member is unable to find a suitable car-sharer within their own group, they can do an advanced search of the entire network.
“The Welsh Assembly Government is really leading the way in providing all its citizens with access to a public, bi-lingual, online car-share scheme,” said Louis Clabburn of liftshare. “The websites will help many thousands of people across Wales save money, reduce pollution and congestion, improve mobility and enjoy more sociable journeys.”
Toni, a member from Swansea, said: “I found the swwitch2share scheme easy to use and found a match travelling between Cardiff and Swansea very quickly. The benefit of using the scheme is that I could be matched with someone of the same age and gender as me, so we have more in common. I don’t drive myself so was pleasantly surprised to see I could sign up as a passenger only.”
The four linked websites making up the nationwide scheme are:
www.swwitch2share.com
www.northwalescarshare.com
www.sewtacarshare.com
www.midwalescarshare.com
liftshare was originally established in 1998 by current Managing Director, Ali Clabburn with the mission is to “encourage and enable more efficient use of the car” and “encourage and enable more efficient travel and transport”;
The typical driver who car-shares for their daily commute saves over £1,000 a year; that same driver will save about one tonne of CO2 emissions over the same period. Visit the liftshare website to find out more