Welcome to not just another CoMoUK newsletter, but one at a crux moment for car sharing in our capital city.
Zipcar’s proposed withdrawal presents all of us who want to see shared options flourish with the terrible prospect of losing the vast bulk of car club provision in Europe’s largest city. This is a concerning time for Zipcar staff and its hundreds of thousands of consumer and business customers.
It also presents some level of opportunity to heed the warnings we have been giving that the operating environment in London, and to an extent beyond, needs to improve. To that end we have been bringing London boroughs and Transport for London together; giving evidence to the London Assembly’s Transport Committee in special session; engaging with DfT and their new team looking at this area; and commenting and opining publicly as you can read below.
Do get in touch on this if you would like to; more to come in our next newsletter and keep an eye on our LinkedIn feed in the meantime.
Keep in touch,
Richard Dilks
Chief Executive, CoMoUK
News & insights 🗞️
ZIPCAR CRISIS
Open letter with the Clean Cities campaign
Part of our response to the Zipcar crisis is this open letter to the Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan and Mayor Brenda Dacres OBE in her London Councils capacity. In summary, it calls for them to:
Intervene in the current situation, working with us, boroughs and operators on an urgent plan
Drive co-ordinated policy action so London has a better way of doing car sharing in the future
Work to cut parking costs for car clubs
Create the right environment for electric car club expansion
We are delighted to have secured such a wide range of signatories, including Hiyacar, Co Wheels and Mobilityways.
We have created a space on our website where people can share how Zipcar’s proposed departure affects them. It’s really useful for us to see these individual stories. We have also put an option for people to tell us if this will tip them to considering car purchase.
Alarmingly (but not surprisingly for readers of our research over the years) over 80% of respondents so far either say they are going to get a car or are considering doing so.
Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy
The Department for Transport is consulting on a draft of the third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS3).
For the first time, CoMoUK has responded to this to highlight the potential of shared micromobility to support active travel by overcoming common barriers. We also highlighted the environmental and health benefits of shared bikes and e-scooters.
Finally, we have signed an open letter alongside many other active travel organisations expressing the need for CWIS3 to be focused on delivering a long-term, measurable, realistic targets and for a comprehensive plan for a national active travel network.
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
This Bill is now in the House of Lords. It has just gone through second reading and will be discussed further at committee stage in January.
We have been contacting peers with our briefing on the Bill and will continue to monitor its passage through Parliament.
We have also signed a letter to MHCLG, drafted by the Healthy Air Coalition. The letter recognises improvements to the Bill but calls for the climate, nature and clean air duty to be included. This would help to ensure that steps taken via the new system which the Bill aims to bring in, will be compliant with these vital goals.
Railways Bill
The Railways Bill sets out to create Great British Railways, a publicly owned body responsible for rail infrastructure and passenger train services.
CoMoUK is clearly not a rail organisation, but we believe it is important we insert shared mobility and mobility hubs into the rail debate to hopefully ensure more integrated journeys for people in the future.
We recently responded to a Transport Select Committee consultation to raise the need for mobility hubs at train stations to support connections to active and public transport, and will continue to push for integration with shared transport to be considered as the Bill goes through Parliament.
As CoMoUK staff work remotely from across the country, it’s important that we get together face to face a few times a year. Our Christmas meet-up is one of these moments and as well as having a good catch up together we try to learn from and experience something new too.
This year we were so grateful to colleagues at Get Cycling for giving us the chance to try just some of their incredible range of adaptive trikes and bikes. Not only was this a lot of fun, but it gives us all a bit of personal experience to bear in mind in relation to our work on shared transport and disabled people.
AGM recording
Thanks to everyone who joined us for the CoMoUK AGM earlier this month.
As well as handling the necessary formal business, we took the video and slides opportunity to review the last 12 months. If you missed it, the video and slides are now on our site.
Events 🗓️
The Shared Transport Conference
25 March 2026
CoMoUK is delighted to be hosting its first in-person conference since 2019. This is a unique opportunity to shine a light on shared transport and its key role in sustainable transport and spatial planning.
The conference will take place at the NVCO in the London Borough of Camden and will include a tour of Camden’s new Somers Town mobility hubs.
As the only conference focussing on shared transport in the UK, you will get a chance to hear about the latest developments and innovations in the sector. We will also be looking ahead as to where the UK should go on shared transport and mobility hubs with the climate, cost of living and public health crises continuing to press home; elections in Scotland, Wales, London and elsewhere in May 2026; and the bulk of this UK Government’s term still to come.
You will find a few more details on our website, with information on the schedule to follow soon.
"I have never owned a car and hope to avoid buying one for as long as possible. Having access to a car club enables me to save money and live a life based on flexible transportation options. I really appreciate the existence of car clubs and hope to see them expand."
Male user from Belfast, 25-34, Annual Car Club Report 2024
