
The original car pool was an invention of World War II. On the home front, gasoline, along with many other scarce items, was being rationed. An automobile was a luxury, to say the least. Driving to and from work alone was frowned upon. But you could serve the war effort if you joined a car pool and shared rides and driving with others. Reader's Digest used the term in 1942: "I don't believe I care for anything, thank you. I'm just in their car pool." McCall's the next year remarked, "On a master map of the city car pools are plotted."
After the war, attitudes about driving relaxed, and for a while there was little more to say about car pools. But along with increasing concern for the environment, carpool became a verb, first attested in the National Review for May 22, 1962: "You have to proceed to the consideration of the relative values of carpooling with large or small families."
And in the oil crisis of the 1970s, everyone was concerned about carpooling. In 1973, the Environmental Protection Agency urged "much greater use of car pooling and mass transportation just about everywhere." In 1974, the New York Times joked, "The Government should encourage bundling as a night-time fuel-saving equivalent to carpooling." There was also the new name carpooler (1972) for someone who would "carpool it" (1973) to work or play.
Nowadays, to expedite travel for carpoolers, some highways use express lanes and diamond lanes (1976). The latter are traffic lanes marked with large diamonds to signify that they are prohibited to those driving alone. To ease the way into joining a car pool signs along highways encourage people to call services which match riders and drivers.

Carpooling (also known as car-sharing, ride-sharing, lift-sharing and covoiturage), is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car.
By having more people using one vehicle, carpooling reduces each person's travel costs such as fuel costs, tolls, and the stress of driving. Carpooling is also seen as a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way to travel as sharing journeys reduces carbon emissions, traffic congestion on the roads, and the need for parking spaces. Authorities often encourage carpooling, especially during high pollution periods and high fuel prices.
In 2009 carpooling represented 10% of commute travel in the United States,[1] most of which involves spouses.
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Drivers and passengers offer and search for journeys through one of the several mediums available. After finding a match they contact each other to arrange any details for the journey(s). Costs, meeting points and other details like space for luggage are agreed on. They then meet and carry out their shared car journey(s) as planned.
Carpooling is commonly implemented for commuting but is increasingly popular for longer one-off journeys, with the formality and regularity of arrangements varying between schemes and journeys.
Carpooling is not always arranged for the whole length of a journey. Especially on long journeys, it is common for passengers to only join for parts of the journey, and give a contribution based on the distance that they travel. This gives carpooling extra flexibility, and enables more people to share journeys and save money.
Today most carpooling is organized thanks to fast-emerging online marketplaces that allow drivers and passengers to find a travel match and make a secured transaction to share the planned travel cost. Like other online marketplaces, they use community-based trust mechanisms, such as user-ratings, to create an optimal experience for users.
Arrangements for carpooling can be made through many different mediums, including:
In an effort to reduce traffic and encourage carpooling some countries have introduced high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes in which only vehicles with two or more passengers are allowed to drive. In some countries it is also common to find parking spaces that are reserved especially for carpoolers. Many companies and local authorities have introduced carpooling schemes, often as part of wider transport programs.
In 2011, an organization called Greenxc[2] created a campaign to encourage others to use this form of transportation in order to reduce their own carbon footprint.
Carpooling, or car sharing as it is called in British English, is promoted by a national UK charity, Carplus, whose mission is to promote responsible car use in order to alleviate financial, environmental and social costs of motoring today, and encourage new approaches to car dependency in the UK. Carplus is supported by Transport For Lonfon (TFL), the British government initiative to reduce congestion and parking pressure and contribute to relieving the burden on the environment and to the reduction of traffic related air-pollution, in London[3].
However not all countries are helping carpooling to spread: in Hungary it is a tax crime to carry someone in a car for a cost share (or any payment) unless the driver has a taxi license and there is an invoice issued and taxes are paid. Several people were fined by undercover tax officers during a 2011 crackdown, posing as passengers looking for a ride on carpooling websites. On 19th March 2012 Endre Spaller, a member of the Hungarian Parliament interpellated Secretary of the State X about this practice who replied that carpooling should be endorsed instead of punished, however care must be taken for some people trying to turn it into a way to gain untaxed profit.[4]
Carpooling first became prominent in the United States as a rationing tactic during World War II. It returned in the mid-1970s due to the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis. At that time the first employee vanpools were organized at Chrysler and 3M.[5]
Carpooling declined between the 1970s and the early 2000s, peaking in the US in 1980 with a commute mode share of 19.7%. By 2004 it was down to 10.1%.[6] Recently, however, the internet has facilitated growth for carpooling and the commute share mode has grown to 10.7% in 2005.[6] The popularity of the internet and mobile phones has greatly helped carpooling to expand, enabling people to offer and find rides thanks to easy-to-use and reliable online transport marketplaces. These websites are commonly used for one-off long-distance journeys with high fuel costs.
Carpooling also exists in other forms:
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carpooling |
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