The City of Sydney’s car share policy has received international recognition from the International CarSharing Association.

Winning the first ever International CarSharing Association Award for Excellence at the association’s annual conference in Montreal, Canada, the policy met all the criteria in reducing congestion and air pollution.

The selection criteria consisted of three points including results and delivery rather than plans and intentions; the policy’s length, with a minimum of three years; and being open, fair and transparent.

Mayor Clover Moore said the average adoption rate of car sharing is 200 people joining each month, pushing membership close to 7500.

“One car share vehicle can replace up to nine private vehicles on our congested roads and research has shown that about a quarter of car share members have deferred the purchase of a car or have sold their vehicle since joining the scheme,” Ms Moore said.

According to Ms Moore, the City of Sydney will continue extending car share parking spaces to residential and commercial developments and car parks.

This extension will increase the scheme’s membership to 15000 by 2016, which will be equivalent to ten city households.

According to the City of Sydney, use and ownership of private vehicles has reduced by 800 cars on the streets since the trial was introduced in 2007.

Since the trial, the City has since installed more than 300 car share spaces being shared between three operators including GreenShareCar, Flexicar and GoGet.

GoGet co-founder and director Bruce Jeffreys said Sydney has the most on-street car share spaces of any of the cities represented in the association.