The south Exmoor car service was a voluntary car service with unpaid local volunteers arranging lifts with volunteer drivers. Lifts were permitted anywhere within the area and to a limited number of destinations outside it, some only for medical purposes. No journeys were allowed which competed with the limited existing public transport. drivers were paid at two different mileage rates; one for journeys they would have made anyway and a higher rate for special journeys. An average of about eleven one-way trips were made each week at a cost of just over #2 in subsidy. All the active volunteers were residents of two of the five parishes in the area as were all but three of the 53 users. The main reason for this localisation of the service is considered to be the lack of suitable organisers in the non-participating parishes. Lift giving was the most common form of transport for those without cars before the experiment, which effectively extended lift opportunities by providing a booking system. Demand for additional public transport was so small and dispersed that only a voluntary car service could satisfy it at reasonable cost. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting