Hitch-hiker's guide to the future of the galaxy

This is a species that is almost extinct, killed off by safety fears and sporadic stories of both drivers and hitch-hikers being killed or injured by the other party during the transaction.

The days of unkempt and often unwashed looking reprobates standing at the entrance to a motorway holding a home-made sign with a destination such as "London" or more intriguingly "junction 8 on M6" (what did these people do there?) seem long gone.

Few will mourn their passing, yet there are some 38 million empty seats in our cars every day of the week.

This is a huge, untapped potential transport capacity that could be harnessed to help reduce the congestion problems that we have in this country.

Anyone who has driven to work this week will know how much easier it has been to get to work, without all the school run traffic around. During the morning peak hours especially, public transport can be very expensive and walking/cycling is not very attractive when the weather is less than perfect.

Sharing a lift with a work colleague is an idea that has been around for a long time, although in reality few stick at it very long as people become very territorial.

Many lift-sharing arrangements break down after a short while because of people's bad habits, music tastes or after-work commitments.

Yet despite this, the average car-sharer could save themselves as much as 1,100 per year in travel costs by sharing the cost of the journey with one other person.

Over the past few years there has been a lot of focus on getting people out of their cars and on to public transport or walking/ cycling.

There have been some notable successes, but overall the number of vehicles using our roads increases each year.

Car sharing has moved up the political agenda, especially with the launch of a national database a few years ago that can match supply and demand.

Liftshare.com now has more than 136,000 members on its free to register website and estimates that there are over 28 million individual journeys being made each year as a result of drivers and passengers being matched.

This database now means that it is no longer necessary to rely on finding your own lift (or passenger) in order to make a car-sharing arrangement.

It is also possible to find out if you can arrange or offer a one-off trip to somewhere further afield.

The number of people signed up to the database is still fairly small compared with the number of motorists overall, but with the fluctuations in petrol prices this year, coupled with more awareness-raising activities, large numbers have signed up this year.

If people who have already signed up report positive experiences, the success of this initiative is likely to develop even further and offer even greater scope for offering another alternative to motoring without demonising car drivers.

For further information about the scheme, visit www.liftshare.org.