What are the issues for people who carpool/rideshare to work, and elsewhere

mlhynes

I’m currently involved in PhD research which involves a look at carpooling/ridesharing for an individual’s commute to & from work and, indeed, I am very interested to hear about people’s experiences of carpooling in general. I’m not concerned about the detail of where people are travelling (from A to but more how people came to the decision to carpool in the first instance. Was it a purely financial consideration or did you have a good enough relationship with another person that you decided carpooling was for you. Was there discomfort to overcome, are there important issues such as thrust and scheduling, do you have similar taste in music, etc, did you use an online carpooling website at any stage? I don’t mind where the discussion takes us and I am most interested in the social aspects of carpooling. You’re suggestions/experience will be very helpful when formulating a more structured interviewing technique on the subject, so any real-life experience is greatly appreciated.

mgmt

You might be interested in the Washington DC slug-lines http://www.slug-lines.com/Slugging/About_slugging.asp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502xQPNO7-I

Victor

Some problems that have been observed:

1. Everyone wants to be the driver / bring their own car. They don't want to be the passenger
2. Would-be car sharers are often would-be public-transport users. Car-sharing damages public transport.

mlhynes

Thanks guys, I have heard of ‘slugging’ mgmt and it’s a very interesting phenomenon. It’s a great way around some of the very congested pockets of traffic in those major cities in the US. Carpooling (and indeed hitchhiking has died away altogether) doesn’t appear to be very popular in Ireland and I’m wondering, with rising oil prices and the countries financial problems what would it take to get people to embrace this way of travelling if anything at all.

ardmacha

Would-be car sharers are often would-be public-transport users. Car-sharing damages public transport.

This will be less a problem in Ireland as public transport has no interest in serving these citizens.

antoinolachtnai

Victor wrote: »

Some problems that have been observed:

2. Would-be car sharers are often would-be public-transport users. Car-sharing damages public transport.

Victor,

Can you give an instance of a situation where car sharing damaged public transport?

What exactly do you imagine the mechanism for the damage would be?

Cookie_Monster

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Victor,

Can you give an instance of a situation where car sharing damaged public transport?

What exactly do you imagine the mechanism for the damage would be?

more cars on the road then if people simply got PT

more traffic, slower buses etc etc

antoinolachtnai

It sounds like a theoretical rather than a real fear, as it is extremely unlikely that all the car-sharers could be enticed out of the car.

Victor

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Can you give an instance of a situation where car sharing damaged public transport?

No, I can't even remeber where I heard it! I suspect it was very much an American thing, but then so is 'institutional' car-sharing.