Carpooling is catching up!

Growing Culture

A cost-effective, environmentally-friendly and fun option for travelling is carpooling. Several companies in the City, especially IT ones, provide their employees with a pickup and drop in the company cars.

There are also groups in every area who travel together privately, with different days allotted for each one to drive on. What’s promoting this culture further is the fact that more and more carpooling apps are being created for this very purpose. 

Trisha, who works at Deutsche Bank, says that the company’s pickup and drop facility gives a secure feeling, especially to women employees. “My company’s very particular about employee safety and has a separate transport department to monitor just this. There’s a barcode on the identity card of each employee, driver and every company car, which is scanned at every pickup and drop. This is done to ease the tracking process. Also, if a girl is the last to be dropped on a route, an escort is sent with her and on reaching home, she has to sign a sheet and call the office to inform them of her location. We have an emergency hotline number too. Such measures are necessary in today’s times, especially since many employees work night shifts,” says Trisha, an employee.

At business parks like Embassy Golf Links, many companies provide group transport to their employees. Kartik, who works on the premises, says, “The disadvantages are that you could be late because of somebody else and that opting for it might force you to leave earlier than you otherwise would. But other than that, it’s a pretty convenient setup. If you stay far away from office, it’s a more viable option than taking public transport or driving to work everyday.”

In the increasingly technology-dependent world, apps and websites like ‘RidingO’, ‘Commute Easy’, ‘PoolCircle’, ‘HopOn’ and ‘Cubito’ have made car sharing options available at the click of a button. Pranay Agarwal, who created a service called ‘Cubito’ with Akhil Singh, says that the response has been tremendous. “In Bangalore, over 45,000 vehicles are running daily on sharing basis. There are two models — carpooling with one’s personal vehicles and cabpooling — which is done by companies. With carpooling as a concept, safety issues arise because it could mean sharing the vehicle with people you don’t know. In terms of general safety, all our drivers are police verified and any property damage is insured. We also take female safety very seriously and an escort is provided for any trip after 8 pm and women have the option of travelling with only female commuters. There’s also a system of complaining against co-passengers,” informs Pranay.

Akhil adds that this system works out cheaper than autos and cabs. “Autos charge Rs 13 per kilometre whereas our commuters pay Rs 7.5 per kilometre regardless of whether they’re the only ones using the service. We work on a share model and co-passengers split the cost,” he explains. There are also those who have reservations about carpooling. “It’s a sound concept in terms of reducing traffic, fuel consumption and parking woes. But personally, I find it a hassle to work my routine around someone else’s. It isn’t feasible if you have prior commitments and travel a lot for work,” says Shiv Rohira, a young professional.