New Values-Matching Carpool Website Debuts
08 September 2006
A volunteer task force in Portland Oregon—the Portland Peak Oil Task Force—has developed a free Internet-based carpool website municipalities can implement to support carpooling in their areas.
Carpoolcrew.com allows carpoolers across the country to locate people within close proximity that also share similar values, such as radio stations.
The site expands on this concept to include matching work schedules, gender, smoking preferences, and more.
If you like a certain type of music or talk radio, you probably want to ride with someone else who likes the same. No one wants to carpool with strangers they don’t know, and it doesn’t make sense to drive across town to pick up friends. We aim to help drivers link up with people living close to them they will get along with. It’s basically a free matching service.
—Randy White, member of the task force
The group, formed in May 2006, also plans to issue a report to the city of Portland highlighting areas of concern to the city in regards to transportation, land use, economics, the food system and social services.
Good idea, but the drawback is that the more refined the search, the less likelihood a match will occur. You need to have as large a database as possible to work with first.
Kind of a catch-22.
Posted by: nb | 08 September 2006 at 01:36 PM
I entered my data in a San Diego area database for commuters. It was a very long process and at the end it had a message that said "thank you for taking our survey". I never received any response on carpooling and I do not even know if the official San Diego County carpool database was even connected to a database at all. We are going to need much more than these kind of token efforts if we are going to save fuel, clean the air and reduce congestion.
Posted by: SJC | 09 September 2006 at 07:49 AM
I think it's a great idea. You're right though... the problem is that enough people who want to carpool need to be signed up for it to be useful. But, over time it might build up in people and be helpful.
Posted by: Jerry | 16 September 2006 at 10:27 AM
Many people could telecomute one day a week from home. Since this is suppose to be the Information Age of Knowledge Workers, I would think that lots of employers could do this. It would save one heck of a lot of fuel and reduce highway congestion.
Posted by: SJC | 20 September 2006 at 12:30 PM