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Let’s Carpool takes off
It’s been a while since I wrote a post here…it’s good to be back! Since I last wrote I found myself a sweet job as a Sustainable Transport Planner at Greater Wellington and am able now to do lots of good stuff, instead of just asking other people to do it.
One part of my job is promoting the Let’s Carpool website that was launched last May in the Wellington Region. Over the last few weeks I’ve been getting my head around exactly what the programme does and what makes it different from other carpooling programmes. Luckily for me, I think it is pretty impressive with some very grunty software behind it that does a number of cool things. Not to mention that it’s New Zealand’s most popular commuter carpool programme.
Not only do you get a map of your commuting route with all the potential carpoolers located on it, it gives you the ability to really personalise what you want. You can state if you don’t want smokers, if you just want to travel with people of the same gender, only fellow employees, or with people that are within 1km of your home intersection. It’s a powerful programme and it works. People who are making trips like Karori to Lower Hutt or Island Bay to Porirua who realistically don’t have many options other than the car, can now share their costs with others going that way.
Currently we have 1400 people using the website and a recent evaluation gave us positive results but also some good ideas for where to now. The most important thing is getting more people using it…obviously that’s the key ingredient for making sure everyone has a possible match. We seem to have passed a kind of tipping point in about March so that now its pretty rare for a person with normal commuting hours to not find at least someone going that way. But the more the better!
If you’ve got any great ideas for us about Let’s Carpool please let us know…either here or you can email me at claire.pascoe@gw.govt.nz. I’m keen to hear marketing suggestions, technological suggestions (given a very modest budget), and any other type of suggestion you might have.
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
August 12th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Great work Claire! Why aren’t you writing on here more often?????
Carpooling is an awesome idea!
August 12th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I just signed up (even though I don’t really ‘commute’ as such), but I wanted to see how the site worked…
That’s super cool – it’s painful to get to the point that you have ENOUGH people that it’s useful, but once you get there, tools like this can do a whole bunch of cool stuff. The main feed back I initially have is:
* Where do I see a list of trips that people are going on? i.e if I want to go to Palmerston North on Monday the 21st, where do i go to see if anyone is already going there?
* I would want to login and go straight to seeing who was on my route, rather than a ‘menu page’ – especially when the menu page gives as much importance to small actions as it does to the key things I want to achieve on the site
* Same goes for the top menu – why does it have a link to ‘menu’? Shouldn’t it have just a list of the key tasks and then a link to my account to sort out all that stuff?
* I would ditch the menu logged out visitors see when they login – it means there are two navigations and one of them is explaining why I should sign up (which I have already done)
Sorry if I sound critical – it’s my job! Plus also, such a cool idea, the easier you make it for people to get stuck in, the better IMHO :)
Catch you on the ‘walking bus’ to d-class tonight :)
August 12th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Thanks Nat – that’s great feedback. We’re trying to think how we can make the opening pages clearer and those are some good ideas. We had a funny phone call from a lady today that said “I have a very short concentration span but found it very easy to sign up. And there’s a human at the end of the phone line!!.” We love to hear these things but know there’s plenty more we can do to make it simple and loveable :)
In terms of one-off trips, that’s something being developed at the moment by the software people and we hope to offer a functional way to do that soon. The site is currently aimed at commuters and works best for that purpose. There is a way using the ‘new trip’ function to go to events but it doesn’t work as well as it can. Watch this space!!!
August 18th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Bonjourno, looking great. Glad it’s working but its a pity that the council competed with a private company using rates cash to develop……looks a little like Gizaride ;) wink wink
September 10th, 2010 at 10:28 am
On the private versus public debate, I reckon most ratepayers would not have a problem with contributing towards something that is genuinely for the public good. Not only is it free to use, carpoolers have commented that what they like most about sharing a ride is saving heaps of petrol and parking money and less wear and tear on their cars.
Let’s Carpool is also saving public money in other ways. Fewer cars on the road means lower road maintenance costs. If everyone who could do so, registered for Let’s Carpool, it might even reduce demand for more roads or flyovers – that has got to be a massive saving for ratepayers….