Building Your Own Carpooling Community With Carma
How you can use Carma to create an alternative and reliable way to commute
Being first to the party is always a little awkward. You’ve decided that you’re going to have a good time, but there’s no one around to talk to. We’ve found that many carpoolers who download the Carma app have similar experiences, but don’t worry, we have features built into the application that, paired with some of the tips listed in this post, will have you sharing trips as quick as a flash.
Download the Carma App
First you’ll need to download the Carma app from either the Apple App Store, or the Google Play Store. When you start the app you’ll be presented with a brief explainer, followed by the option to create a new account. For the sake of speed, I’d recommend choosing the Facebook option. This will save you time filling out tedious forms and bring in your current Facebook profile picture.
#ProTip 1: Ensure that you have a profile picture set up; our analysis has shown that people with a friendly avatar are more likely to catch a ride with someone else!
Create Your Trips
Now that you’ve created your account, we’re going to need to know where you travel to and from. This is as simple as typing in your origin and destination along with the time that you will take the trip. There’s an option to select your usual role, either as driver or rider; don’t worry too much about this, just treat it as an indication. At any point you can change these trips by going to your profile and viewing your currently active trips.
#ProTip 2: By choosing popular meeting points, such as bus or train stations, you are more likely to catch a ride. For example, if you usually take a train to work, just put in both stations as the start and end points of your trip.
Once you have created your account and entered your trip details, we’ll do a quick search behind the scenes to check if there any good matches. In areas where a Carma community is still being formed, you should expect that sometimes we won’t find a perfect pairing for you. In these cases, we strongly recommend that you spread the word about Carma to your family, friends, work colleagues and connections. We’ve even added a screen at the end of the signup process to help you do this.
Find Your Matches
As you spread the word about Carma, and people add trips that match yours, you’ll get notifications from us to let you know. You should head over to the ‘Plan Trip’ screen where you’ll see a list of all the people who are going your way. As this screen is split into drivers and riders, you can easily change your own role in the interests of getting a trip to work, or back home.
#ProTip 3: Start organizing your morning commute between 6pm and 7pm the evening before; it raises your chance of catching a ride, as more people are active at this time.
#ProTip 4: Why not arrange for a trip back home when taking your carpool into work?
An App Is Nothing Without A Community
While getting set to take a trip is quite easy, it can be unsettling when you have no one else going your way. Don’t give up though! Think of creative ways to spread the word about carpooling. Share a post on your favorite social network about the app, letting people know that you’re looking for people to carpool along your route.
Put up a poster in your work canteen, your apartment building, sports club or any bulletin board. Talk to your friends and family, or people that you recognise in your work building. Or why not just contact our community coordinators by emailing team@car.ma
The beauty of communities, and Carma carpooling, is that once you have just a few people in your network, taking a carpool to work becomes a viable alternative.
Get through any transportation crisis by becoming less dependent on public transport, and creating your own social transportation network!
