Carpooling is the sharing of a car between two or more individuals traveling in the same route. There are numerous advantages to carpooling like cost savings, reduction in fuel consumption, pollution etc. In a country like India, where the road infrastructure is never enough to support the number of vehicles on the roads, carpooling is an ideal solution. Then why do we not accept carpooling?
Many might retort that it is the Indian habit of showing off and the car being a symbol of social status that makes people less willing to carpool. Though this is partially true, these are just mind sets which can be changed with awareness. Five years back most people thought that India would never shop online and today you have websites selling diamonds and furniture online. Wasn’t this a huge change in the Indian mind set? The lesson to be learned from this is that change can be brought upon by addressing the underlying problems and through awareness. In the previous case, the underlying problem was the fear of being cheated when making online transactions which has been addressed successfully through safety precautions in online banking. The awareness aspect was taken care by massive promotional campaigns by e-commerce websites in both print and digital media.
Coming back to the topic, I would say carpooling CAN click in India provided the underlying problems are successfully addressed. I would say there are two major problems in India for carpooling. One is the fear of safety and the other is lack of flexibility in timing.
Understanding these issues, my colleague and I have come up with a solution which addresses both these problems. The solution is called rideIT. Our website (www.rideIT.in) and mobile app (coming soon) serve as an inter-company carpool matching service exclusively for working professionals. By limiting registration to employees of major companies, we have created a platform where one can feel safe to share rides. This takes care of safety but what about flexibility?
rideIT facilitates two kinds of carpools – Regular Carpool (daily carpool) and Casual Carpool (one-time ride). This way, users can find a Regular Carpool for daily travel to office and whenever their regular ride is not available, they can search for a Casual Carpool back home.
We had a pilot launch last year in Hyderabad in 24 companies and plan to soon open up to all major companies. This way, we are trying to inculcate the habit of carpooling among India’s working professionals with the aim of creating a sustainable transport system…… Do wish us luck and STW
If you have any comments or suggestions, please reply to this post or feel free to write to me at jacob.rahul@gmail.com
Twitter: @rahul_jacob
