The Problem
About 80% of South Africans drive alone to work. Driving is expensive and the average travel cost for people who drive to work has risen to about R 25 000 per year with many people paying even more. With petrol prices set to remain at a high level and other costs such as tolls and parking there’s no relief in sight. For decades, carpooling has promised a solution that could solve thes
e problems. Traditionally, carpooling has required a fixed group of people who commit to meet at a fixed time at a fixed place every day. But a fixed carpooling arrangement doesn’t meet today’s demands of flexible working hours and unpredictable schedules. Most people want the freedom to leave when they want instead of a fixed arrangement. People taking other modes of transport have different problems. Not all companies offer a company bus or car for employee transportation. Some people take 2 or more buses/trains/taxis or maintain an extra car in the household just to be able to drive in to a park and ride – the costs of maintaining an extra car quickly add up. CarTrip is a new way of carpooling – instantly – using a mobile app or website. Unlike a conventional carpool, CarTrip has no fixed groups of carpoolers nor is there a daily schedule associated with the carpool. Riders pay a small fee and get point-to-point transportation in a comfortable car and drivers are able to get a cost reimbursement for their costs. A win-win situation for all parties, including the environment. At a flat fee of R 1.06 per kilometre with no peak rates, CarTrip is several times cheaper than a taxi or similar services (Eg Uber) and works out as a viable option for a commute so it could be used daily. CarTrip – What it is not. CarTrip is not a taxi service that picks up the rider at the riders location and drops off the rider at the rider’s destination. The taxi does not have a trip with an origin and destination that is independent of the rider’s trip. Taxi drivers (eg. Uber drivers) make an income and profit from their service and use it as a primary or secondary job. In the case of CarTrip, when the driver is offering rides, the driver is travelling from an origin to a destination independent of any riders. The driver picks up and drops-off riders along the way with minor deviations for the convenience of the pickup and drop-off. The CarTrip Platform caps the money received by the driver using the reimbursement rates defined by SARS so that drivers do not make a profit and instead partially recover some of their ordinary driving costs. So lets make a difference to our environment, lets make new friends, lets save money, lets do a Cartrip.
