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Exploitable results
The ICARO project has raised the profile of car-pooling as a serious contributor in the field of traffic management. As a measure, car-pooling will always be a peripheral component of any strategic transport management policy, albeit an important contributor. Under the most favourable conditions, the impact is unlikely to be other than minimal in contributing to the solution of complex transport problems that beset European urban/interurban conurbations.
Nevertheless, the measures investigated indicate that they should only be regarded as an appropriate response in specific situations, where, for example, public transport is either not competitive or already overcrowded. The final outcome from ICARO suggests that by adopting an integrated approach with a toolkit of applications, given appropriate safeguards, car occupancy rates can be improved without adversely affecting public transport usage. In conclusion, from the ICARO experiences it can be said that car-pooling is a promising part of any transport policy in the urban/metropolitan framework and should be embedded in Green Commuter Plans or Travel Wise campaigns. The aim is to reduce the dependence on cars by promoting various alternatives. Car-pooling is seen as a substitute solution and will be accepted if it enables significant advantages for the individual transport situation, mainly significant cost or time savings.
The potential of car-pooling is somewhat limited as it seems to be quite difficult to co-ordinate different peoples trips. This is still more difficult as there is a tendency in work time schedules towards flexible working hours, which are a serious obstacle against car-pooling. For matching services it is important that the number of potential car-poolers exceed a critical number. Consequently, bigger demonstration sites have higher numbers of interested participants and a greater potential of success. It could also be found that it is quite important to focus all efforts on specific target groups such as commuters or companies rather than to spread information indifferently.
%Generally it can be said that the idea of car-pooling is mostly accepted and rated positively by the population. Still some prejudices have to be overcome as seen in the comparison of experienced and inexperienced people. As the surveys showed, the implementation of incentive measures does cause a positive influence on car occupancy rates, by not only stopping the decrease, but even raising the level. Evidently the more restrictive an implemented measure is, the more influence it has on the car occupancy rate, but the less accepted it is among the population.
Project URL : http://www.boku.ac.at/verkehr/icaro.htm
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