Carpooling hasn’t found favour with commuters

Carpooling hasn’t found favour with commuters
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Carpooling is a popular trend for not just cutting down commuting costs but also reducing vehicular population on the roads and pollution.

So much so, that now there are websites that offer carpooling services by letting you place ads to help find partners who are open to hitching a ride with you.

However, there are very few entries from the city indicating that carpooling may not be such a preferred option here.

When this website's newspaper spoke to those who had registered on these websites, most said that they had not received any replies so far.

And those who have received replies, have not been successful in finding a partner, gave reasons ranging from feasibility to the fear of being booked for harassment!

Says Rajith K, an IT professional: “I have got a lot of requests but nothing has worked out because of the location and varying timings. Most of us get to work at the same time but the time we leave from work varies everyday.”

Apart from feasibility, according to Gagan Reddy, a software engineer who commutes from Koramangala to the Outer Ring Road in Marathahalli, there are other serious concerns as well.

“Social security is an issue. On what basis can you trust a stranger?” he says. He is also wary of choosing a partner, especially a female carpool partner.

“What if things go wrong and she files a harassment case against me, I’ll be behind the bars!” he says.

Despite these fears, Gagan has registered in various websites hoping that people would eventually accept it, since it is a good idea and ‘travelling alone is a pain’.

DCP Traffic M A Saleem too supports the idea of carpooling.

“We have run campaigns encouraging people to carpool since it is beneficial. But, not many are implementing the idea. But we are hopeful that once the Hosur Road expressway is in place and toll booths are set up, people will opt for carpools.”