Last week's poll: reducing car ownership

The UK should invest in public transport ahead of roads, according to 50 per cent of Engineer readers who took part in last week’s poll.

The poll asked for best ways to curb mass car ownership and was predicated by a report from the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS), which called for a government strategy to reduce the overall demand for cars.

As noted last week, suburban and rural households will likely continue to depend on personal vehicles, but the situation is different in cities where several younger people are forgoing car ownership in favour of public transport, walking, cycling, ride-hailing and car-sharing. CREDS is calling for a policy to capitalise on this trend, moving further away from the perceived norm of a car for every household.

Of the 641 respondents, 15 per cent agreed that remote working should be incentivised, and 10 per cent thought that road usage should be taxed per mile. Five per cent want subsidies for car sharing schemes and a fifth (20 per cent) opted for ‘none of the above’.