The Colsterdale car service was a commercially operated shared hire car scheme. Part of the experimental area had a weekly bus to Ripon, but it did not conveniently serve Masham, the nearby town. The car service offered all the residents of the area a daily connection with a Ripon bus in Masham. During the second phase of the scheme a connection with the weekly Bedale bus and a daily additional departure from Masham was offered. The service operated reliably, but patronage was low. During the second phase it doubled to, on average, five one way trips per week. Car ownership was high and lifts catered for most requirements at the site, leaving only a scattered residual demand. Many of the car journeys were for shopping and social visits and most would have been made somehow in the absence of the service, and only about one-tenth of trips resulted in an extra bus journey. The low demand resulted in little car sharing, poor vehicle utilisation, and consequently poor financial performance. During the second phase of the scheme direct revenue covered 20 per cent of total costs, with indirect generated revenue on the connecting bus service equivalent to roughly a further 8 per cent of costs. (Author/publisher)
Abstract