Daily car trips accelerated with a bonus of 100 euros

What if practice became a part of mores? Daily car sharing has accelerated thanks to a €100 bonus announced at the end of 2022, according to figures released by the government on Thursday. As of July 1, 2023, 130,000 new drivers have made trips registered on car sharing platforms.

Thus, the number of flights doubled in the first six months of the year compared to the beginning of 2022, with platforms recording over 5 million flights, saving an estimated 7.7 million liters of oil.

“That’s very good, but we used up 20 billion liters in a semester,” Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runashe said during a system monitoring meeting. “We can do better! »

Another drop of water in transport

According to the Carpooling Observatory, popular trips take place in the Ile de France and around Rouen in particular, as well as between Annecy and Switzerland or between Nice and Monaco. While this form of organized hitchhiking currently accounts for 3% of long-distance travel, its daily practice remains a drop in the transport ocean (0.01% according to BlaBlaCar).

The platforms record an average of less than 40,000 trips per day (stated because many trips are also informal), of which 100 million trips are made by car every day in France to get to and from work, take children to school and etc. school or running errands.

Thousands of cases of fraud

The Ministries of Ecological Transition, Energy Transition and Transport announced in December that motorists who start car sharing in 2023 could receive a €100 bonus as part of a €150 million plan. Several thousand cases of fraud have already been identified, when people made the same trip with accounts opened on two laptops.

Since then, the government has developed a “combat plan” with increased detection of car carriers or campaigns to ban platform scammers. These actions will be further stepped up in the coming months, the ministries said. Thursday also saw the launch of a “charter” for companies in favor of car sharing, already signed by La Poste, Carrefour or Les Mousquetaires.

Target: 3 million rides per day

The very ambitious goal of this “car sharing plan” is to eventually reach three million daily trips, which would allow France to avoid 1% of greenhouse gas emissions. “The whole challenge is to achieve a density that allows you to find multiple trips per day to the same destination,” said Nicolas Brusson from BlaBlaCar.

“Awareness of the plan is still low,” he added. The plan is very young, we are at the beginning of the marathon.” The new communication campaign will be launched by the respective ministries at the beginning of the academic year in September.