Carpooling- Past, Present and Future
“The idea of a big metal object, weighing in tons, carrying a single person makes no sense in today’s world of technology.”
Carpooling has garnered decent interest in recent years. Though, contrary to popular belief, the concept is not something new that’s a result of the tech boom from the 90s till now. In fact, the concept came into existence during a rather adverse scenario, World War II.
The Past
During World War II the US Office of Civilian Defense encouraged carpooling among workers to save rubber and fuel. They also established the Car Sharing Club Exchange and Self-Dispatching System to facilitate ride-sharing.
Carpooling returned in the mid-1970s in response to the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis. During this period, Chrysler and 3M led the way by organizing the first employee vanpools. In the coming decades it became popular among students due to limited parking space availability in college campuses.
Fast forward to the 90s and the 2000s, people lost interest in carpooling due to dramatic decrease in fuel prices in the US.
Tech Enabled Carpooling
The past decade saw a huge IT transformation. Smartphone and 4G internet connectivity completely revolutionized every aspect of our modern society and transportation is not an exception.
“Technology is arguably the most crucial and the only factor that has been missing since the time when carpooling saw its dawn.”
Think about it. I want to share my empty car seats while going to the office everyday, but have no means of finding the people going on the same route or are interested. Dead end, idea abandoned! A few neighbors or relatives might hop onto the ride some times, but one, it’s difficult to ask them for money for the ride, two, they won’t do it everyday.
Smartphone Application based platforms have been able to offer end to end solutions for making carpooling the best mode of transportation. Technological advancement has connected demand and supply by linking ride takers and ride givers together. As a result, by 2020 Europe had more than 80 million carpool users.
The widespread use of the Internet and smart phones has significantly facilitated the growth of carpooling. These technologies along with careful strategies by service providers, have made it effortless for individuals to both offer and find rides through user-friendly and dependable online transportation platforms.
Covid 19 Hit
The Covid 19 pandemic hit the Carpooling market the hardest in particular. Complete lockdowns, strict social distancing norms and world wide bans on traveling put an abrupt stop on the ones, flourishing carpool sector that peaked during 2018–19.
The Present
Post Covid, carpool service providers are again gearing up with a good but not great start. The interest in carpooling has dipped substantially as the user’s behavior has changed entirely. It may be because of a newfound consciousness regarding social distancing or, simply due to the loss of interest in the concept.
The pandemic made the craze for carpooling fade away like a social media trend.
India’s top carpooling platform, Quick Ride, has presence across 7 major cities in India with 4.5 million plus users.
Quick Ride’s daily ridership in 2019 was 90,000 that plunged to zero due to the pandemic. The ridership is gaining back traction again at a steady pace in 2023.
Headquartered in Bangalore, the IT capital of India, Quick Ride has researched the traffic problem in Indian megacities and come up with the most viable solution. Traffic congestion is not just about the everyday struggle of reaching the office. It has far deeper Financial, Environmental and Social impacts.
As per a report, people in Bangalore lose 243 hours every year to traffic congestion. To put it into perspective, the time lost amounts to $5.92 Billion. And that’s just one city. All major cities in India face the same problem with variable degrees of traffic.
Quick Ride’s home page reads-
“We are on a mission to remove 1 million cars from the roads, everyday”
Let’s see why this is a big deal. What are the everyday commute challenges?
1. Costly and Uncomfortable commute
In India, the most popular modes of everyday commuting are metros, autorikshaws, cabs and buses. While these transportation modes are relatively cheaper, they are mostly overburdened and crowded. Moreover, one may need to change multiple modes in order to reach their destination.
Cabs are comfortable but they are expensive. Private cars may be a bit lighter on the pocket, but the overall cost of owning a car is huge and given the traffic, driving everyday to work again is not a comfortable option.
2. Bumper to Bumper traffic while Millions of seats go empty
Traffic in India is cut throat. A major reason for the problem is millions of single occupancy private vehicles on our roads. Hon’ble Nitin Gadkari (Minister for Road Transport & Highways ) recently raised this concern in one of his speeches.
Carpooling fits right in here.
Every single occupancy car has 3–4 empty seats that can be shared easily. It also means that each empty car seat shared is one vehicle removed from the roads. The same is true for sharing a motorcycle’s seat. This way, carpooling/bikepooling removes at least one vehicle per seat shared.
3. Tons of CO2 Emission From Private Vehicles and Taxis
Let’s admit it. We contribute to air and noise pollution every time we take our car/bike out for a ride. Purposes could be different, pollution is constant.
If every vehicle out there shared 1–2 empty seats regularly, we can drastically reduce the number of personal vehicles and cabs from the roads. We can have much easier roads with much cleaner air.
We all love to discuss Global warming, noise pollution, melting ice caps, and air pollution etc. It’s time that we start doing our part.
4. Carpool has Impeccable Results in the Form of huge monetary savings and Convenience
Let’s understand this with an example and simple math.
Vishal stays in Bangalore, near Kalamandir, Marathahalli and drives his Alto to work everyday to Manayata Tech Park, Nagavara. The one way distance is approximately 16 km.
Let’s assume a scenario. Take Alto 800’s worst mileage in Bangalore’s traffic be 16km/l. Petrol price in Bangalore is ₹100/L.
Now, Vishal offers three of the empty seats in his car at ₹4/km and finds two ride takers. After negotiations the price is decided at ₹3/km. Each person would be paying Vishal ₹48 by the end of the Journey.
This of course can vary according to the degree of route match, negotiations, car type etc. But at the end of it, here are the top outcomes-
- Vishal saved huge on his daily office commute
- The ride takers got comfy car rides at almost bus fares
- At least two vehicles were removed from the roads easing the traffic congestion
- Much lesser fuel was used and much lesser emissions were done.
- Three unknown people became friends.
5. Financial, Environmental and Social impacts Impacts of Carpooling
Unless you are a car enthusiast with a really great car in your garage, everyday commutes are boring, tiresome and frustrating, given the traffic. Then comes the cost of owning a car that includes monthly fuel expenses, EMIs, insurance, periodic car services etc.
Carpooling can drastically bring down the overall cost of owning a car. Whether you use your car everyday, or just for a few spins every month, carpooling would make your car owning experience much cheaper and fun.
Driving everyday in the traffic can also take a toll on your mental health. Having carpool partners with you during every ride provides you with an opportunity to socialize, converse and form relations with new people.
“This concept completely transforms that way of commuting and socializing. It reduces Stress on commuters. “
The Quick Ride app has advanced filters like “Same Gender” and “Users from the same Company Match”. All their users are either government ID or professional ID verified. You also have an option to filter out the non verified users.
There’s a reason why corporate employees are preferring carpooling to public transport.
Carpooling in 2023 is an affordable, convenient, greener and safer alternative to cabs, buses, autos and metros.
The Future
According to the latest research reports, global carpooling is set to grow at an impressive rate of 15.7% in the current decade. Two years after the pandemic, people are coming back to shared mobility solutions for obvious reasons.
Lockdowns during the pandemic gave people a good peek into how great their city lives could be without traffic congestion and air pollution. People are acknowledging their role in sustaining and restoring the environment.
The main driving force behind
People are finding the idea of carpooling an easy effort on their part towards the environment, while saving thousands on everyday commute, reducing traffic, and making friends.
And it’s not limited to just local or office rides. The Quick Ride app also facilitates carpooling outside the cities making even outstation car rides cheaper and more sensible. The general public has begun catching up with the idea that a car carrying a single person is simply senseless and a waste of resources.
While the general public is increasingly showing great interest in carpooling, encouragement from the Governments and Enterprise can be a total game changer.
Effects of Advent of EVs on Carpooling
Electric cars may be a bit more environmentally sustainable, but they won’t help ease down the traffic. With the economic growth happening around the globe the number of vehicles is set to grow at unprecedented rate.
Electric vehicles are not as green as we think, yet. Bulk of the electricity produced worldwide is by using fossil fuels. EVs require the same electricity to charge. Additionally, Lithium batteries, the most crucial component in any electric vehicle require extensive mining to manufacture. This again adds to the emissions.
As per an article I read, Electric vehicles at present are just about 10–20% more efficient environmentally compared to fossil fuel run vehicles. Plus, they are really expensive.
The environmental compatibility of EVs may go up in the coming future, but we will have to wait at least another 15–20 years to the current diesel and petrol vehicles to completely phase out.
So, EV users still going to love carpooling. They are saving huge on fuel costs already. They would save a lot more on the cost of the car by offering vacant seats.
How can Governments and Enterprises Help
It’s simple actually. Governments can make rules for their employees to carpool compulsorily that would garner interest from more people. Rules banning single occupancy cars entry at prime locations across cities can be easily established.
Another easy approach would be to dedicate parking spaces for carpoolers only.
Enterprises and big Tech Parks can also follow suit. Quick Ride has already tied up with many big companies like Qualcomm, Wipro, Infosys, TATA, Cognizant and many and implemented Enterprise Carpooling systems. The enterprises report much lesser pressure on parking space, related manpower and infrastructure.