SHARING was the key to transport in the 21st century, Fred Jones the general manager of Uber's UK and Ireland expansion told an audience of Hampshire business people this morning.

Fred was the keynote speaker at Venturefest South, at Winchester Guildhall, where he explained that Uber could be force for good by taking cars off the world's congested roads.

Cities all over the world were enslaved to cars which clogged up the roads and required huge amounts of space to park.

He said there were a billion cars in the world (more than the combined population of the USA and Europe) but said"it's not the number which is the problem but the way they are used – which is individually and inefficiently."

Too many cars were driving around with three or four empty seats.

Fred said that in los Angeles and Sidney the average car commuter spends two working weeks a year sitting in traffic jams - that figure rises to five weeks in Mexico City.

In the USA there were eight car spaces for every car - if they were put together they would cover an area 12 times the size of New York city.

Space used for idle cars could be used for building houses, schools or parks, argued Fred.

"But the only way we can make people give up cars is to have an affordable and reliable alternative," said Fred.

In New Jersey Uber had worked with the city authority who had subsidies fares - making them them the same cost a day's parking - to cut down on traffic. The alternative was to shell out millions to buy expensive real estate to build new parking lots.

Fred said despite the fact that many modern cities had good public transport systems many people were forced into car ownership because they did not live close enough to the transport links.

He said one Uber's success had been to link to go the "last mile" at either end of a bus or train journey, connecting the traveller to their final destination.

Now Uber were trying to persuade more people to share their ride and created a fare system which would reduce the cost of the trip if it was shared.

In San Francisco, where Uber was born, the 50 per cent of the company's rides were pool trips and globaly one in five were shared.

Further into the future many Uber cars would have an extra seat as there would be o driver. The comany is currently trialling driverless cars in Pittsburgh and Arizona.

Fred told the Echo later that it was unlikely that Uber would buy these driverless vehicles and the company were already in talks with Volvo and Daimler Chrysler about possible partnerships.

Fred was the keynote speaker Venturefest South - a new event which brings together innovators and creatives and gives them a chance to pitch their products and ideas directly to entrepreneurs and investors.

the events is spopnsored by PR company Carswell Gould, Oxford Innovations, Southampton Solent and Portsmouth universities and the the Solent and Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).