The Benefits of Carpooling in Relation to Environment and Transportation Issues

India is undergoing rapid urbanization has contributed positively to increasing the distribution rate of vehicles. An aspirational and growing middle-class has led to a massive addition of cars to Indian roads from 6.1million in 2000 to 30.2 million in 2016, according to Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. However, this has caused social problems such as environmental pollution and the exhaustion of resources. Strategies to combat these problems would include reducing the emissions per vehicle kilometer traveled and the total number of kilometers traveled. Road congestion may be reduced by the use of good public transport management, traffic management and car pools etc.

In the transportation sector, the increasing rate of traffic congestion and single-occupancy vehicles during rush hours has become a major issue in addition to other issues such as parking difficulties and environmental pollution. Shared transportation is a concept based on most private passenger cars being used mostly during commuting hours. Carpooling is an alternative, affordable, socially acceptable and environmentally friendly mean of transport. It is providing to the drivers and the passengers the opportunity to travel together using the same vehicle. This concept of shared transportation addressing the increasing traffic issues such as congestion and CO2 emissions has been actively introduced, especially in developed countries. These services have a significant socio-economic cost-saving effect on traffic congestion, environmental cost reduction, and so forth, and therefore plays an important role in traffic demand management. It’s also economic since the travel expenses are shared among the riders. 

Benefits of Carpooling

• Share fuel costs with other aspiring travelers and lessen the congestion on roads.
• It will be economically and ecologically friendly and makes it easier for commuters to find a ride with an experienced and trusted driver (owner of car).
• Reduced Parking Demand: Parking demand will be reduced by car-pooling.
• Reduced Pollution: Decreasing the volume of vehicle trips is far less costly than providing new transportation facilities and the decrease in the number of trips will reduce air pollution.

Benefits of Car-Pooling for Individuals

• Reduced traveling expenses and the need for second car
• Owning car – not required
• Benefit of car-pooling for the community
• Reductions in vehicle emissions
• Reduction in traffic volumes and congestion
• Provides an alternative, cost effective choice
• Improving the environment

Benefit for companies that arrange car pooling

• Maximizing use of employee parking
• Encouraging sociability between employees
• Reducing stress on driving to work

Conclusion

The idea behind travel demand reduction is to reduce congestion by decreasing the number of vehicle trips on the existing road network. Travel demand reduction focuses on maximizing the movement of people, not vehicles, within the transportation system. This can be done by increasing the number of persons in a vehicle, or by influencing the time of travel. Carpooling is the easiest and most common ridesharing arrangement. 

Travelling alone may be stressful, so having other persons with you on a trip reduces the stress and is also the occasion to socialize. With the increase of environmental concerns and the congestion of roads, carpooling has gained a lot of popularity when it comes to environment-friendly and cheap ways of travelling.