A carpool is a group journey in which at least two persons are traveling in the same direction. In some circumstances, all carpoolers may meet at a predetermined spot, while in others, the car owner may pick up passengers along the way to their destination.
Unless you and your fellow carpoolers agree otherwise, each participant will be given a ride home or back to the meetup location. While carpools are frequently arranged for a single trip, such as a long-distance road trip, employees and students who participate in periodic carpools will realize the biggest financial benefit over time. At most, you’ll be paying half of what you’d regularly spend on gas to commute to and from work or school.
Every empty seat in the gazillion automobiles on the road is a missed opportunity to save money, decrease traffic and pollution, and foster community by sharing a ride. While carpooling isn’t a new concept, many new websites and apps like cool.mt make it easier than ever to advertise spare places in your car and safely find potential carpool companions.
The Advantages of Carpooling
According to ridesharing services, rising gas prices have sparked a recent surge in interest in carpools. Organizing a shared ride is an excellent method to cut your current petrol costs in half or even three or four ways.
Participants who share rides drive less, which has a significant environmental advantage. Automobiles emit carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that contributes to global warming. Cars emit smog closer to the ground, which contributes to asthma and other public health issues. Ride-sharing is a great method to cut down on automobile miles when walking, biking, or taking public transportation isn’t an option.
Carpooling to work, school, and worship is a great way to save money.
If you don’t have a friend or coworker who is willing to carpool with you, new web tools can help you find safe and reliable carpool partners. Other firms, such as cool.mt, provide comparable ridesharing internet services that employers can make available to their employees.
Ridesharing to Events
When you’re arranging a car drive to a huge event like a conference, concert, sporting event, festival, or celebration, see if you can share rides there and back. There is a range of free technologies that can help attendees get a ride for private events such as weddings or family reunions. For example, hosts can use Google Docs to construct a spreadsheet with columns for name, contact information, rides offered, rides needed, origin and destination, and “match made,” and then share the spreadsheet’s public URL with guests via e-mail.
In town, you can share rides.
Many local ridesharing services are available in specific metropolitan areas. Many vibrant local Web sites, some of which are created by municipal transportation authorities, assist individuals in sharing trips.
Out-of-Town Ride-Sharing
Are you planning a weekend trip out of town? Carpoolers can find one other for trips between cities using a number of national ridesharing Web sites. Choose “rideshare” under community on your local Craigslist to view a chronological list of rides requested and offered. eRideShare.com and Carpoolworld.com are two other nationwide rideshare options for intercity trips.
