Planetarion Forums - View Single Post - Petrol prices and how i started to question the car

Dante Hicks · 24 Dec 2007, 14:12

Higher energy costs are a good thing in the long run, so long as they are managed properly to stop the effects completely crushing any particular set of individuals. I suspect that in the longer term, cars will still be very popular for people outside of the most densely populated areas, but certain journey types will become less common.

When calculating something for work I had to do a survey and found that there was several people who travelled over 100 miles a day to and from work. The majority of these people were doing jobs which could be done from home at least two or three times a week. Factor in high commercial rents and it's not surprising that 20% of our employees will work from home at least once a week within a year (up from 0% about five years ago).

Residential car-pooling could prove interesting, it's in place in a few developments in the UK, although I am still unsure if it "fits" Britain. The principle is sound though; if you don't need a car that often, then why own one? If you can get the balance between cars and residents right (enough to guarantee 95% availability or something) then you can cut the individual costs of car ownership dramatically while not demanding huge sacrifices from anyone.

24 Dec 2007, 14:12	#21
Dante Hicks Clerk Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 13,940	Re: Petrol prices and how i started to question the car Higher energy costs are a good thing in the long run, so long as they are managed properly to stop the effects completely crushing any particular set of individuals. I suspect that in the longer term, cars will still be very popular for people outside of the most densely populated areas, but certain journey types will become less common. When calculating something for work I had to do a survey and found that there was several people who travelled over 100 miles a day to and from work. The majority of these people were doing jobs which could be done from home at least two or three times a week. Factor in high commercial rents and it's not surprising that 20% of our employees will work from home at least once a week within a year (up from 0% about five years ago). Residential car-pooling could prove interesting, it's in place in a few developments in the UK, although I am still unsure if it "fits" Britain. The principle is sound though; if you don't need a car that often, then why own one? If you can get the balance between cars and residents right (enough to guarantee 95% availability or something) then you can cut the individual costs of car ownership dramatically while not demanding huge sacrifices from anyone.