Car pooling: how about government facilitating it?

We always talk about how good it will be if people opt for car pooling while commuting to office. Although most of us agree that car pooling is a great idea, not many of us actually get to do it. There can be many reasons for it, which mostly relate to people either not wanting to share their car or not bothering to find someone to share it with.

Given this problem, I think it would make more sense for the government to come forward and facilitate car-pooling for the people.


The basic idea:
The idea is pretty simple and is borrowed from the shuttle service that is run by the bigger IT companies:

• People need to register for the service online as from where to where they want to travel and at what time
• The software can then group people based on the location and the time at which they want to travel. Given the population of Bangalore, I'm sure there are very good chances of people traveling from the same location, whose work timing and location match
• So based on the grouping, the cars can be dispatched to the respective areas to pick up people at the respective time.
• Same would be the case when people want to return from work
•  

Feasibility:
For the service to be feasible and for the people to be really interested in it, it should be affordable, comfortable and efficient. The following are a few things (there can be many more) that can be done to ensure the same:

• The cars used should have A/c with comfortable seating and should carry a few copies of the famous magazines and news papers
• The service should be such that people are picked up as close to their house as possible and dropped exactly where ever they want to go
• The picking up time should be ensured as much as possible with a possible delay of not more than 10 minutes, and based on the time of the hour(depending on the traffic), an approximate drop off time should also be conveyed to the passengers at the time of their registration.
• The charges should not be more than 4-5 rupees/km, with a minimum of 30-40 rupees per-trip/per-head
• There can also be monthly/quarterly registration, and there should be a concession if registered for higher duration. There should be a way to cancel the registration midway as well, and the charges be adjusted accordingly and the money reimbursed. There should not be any human intervention and all of this should happen online to ensure efficiency and promptness.

Private involvement:
Although the software and the website still has to be monitored by the government, the cars and their drivers can that be of private players. For example, in the same website, there can be a separate registration page for people who may want to register their vehicles to be used for this service. Or may be the government can take bids from private companies who may want to run the car pooling service entirely.

Of course, the government needs to make sure the vehicle-owners/private-companies are getting good ROI by giving them a healthy share of the profit (per trip basis may be).

The minimum specification of the cars (A/c, cushioning, etc) should be specified for the cars to qualify for this service. Also, may be they can give them higher profits if they run on zero-pollution fuel like LPG or CNG.

After effects:
If successfully implemented, government can then find ways to discourage people from using their own 4-wheeled commutation to work. For example, on the week days, during the peak hours (say 8:30am-10:30am and 6:00pm-8:30pm), 4-wheelers carrying say less than 3 people can be fined. Zero-pollution vehicles can probably be excused.

This way, I think the traffic can be drastically reduced and the pollution levels can also be brought down. Also, people who do not own cars can also have the privilege of commuting comfortably in cars. 

P.S. I had this idea on car pooling and I was not sure where to express it. Recently I came to know of this website from a friend. I'm glad to know there is one such place where people can express their thoughts and also track the progress of the public works going on in Bangalore.
 

[PS: Formatted this nice post, no editing done {blrd_editor}]