Sharing Is Good: How to Save Money, Time and Resources Through Collaborative Consumption (23 page)

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Cost to join?
AutoShare’s “Simple Plan” requires a $45 annual fee (waived for the first year) and $10.25/hour. Other rate plans are available based on how much you drive.

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What about safety?
Members are covered by $2 million in third-party liability coverage and can pay an extra annual fee so that the deductible is $0. Gas, maintenance, and parking are also included.

This is just a small sampling of the car-sharing services, both P2P

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and B2C that exist throughout North America. For a more com-

plete idea of just how many car-sharing opportunities are in your area, visit Carsharing.net and Carsharing.ca.

Ridesharing

Maybe you’re not looking for a car to help you do errands around

town. Maybe you just need a ride to the airport or a way to get

home for the holidays, but don’t have the money for a plane ticket.

Maybe you’ve got tickets to a great music festival in the next state, but don’t want to waste all that gas driving solo. Ridesharing, also known as carpooling, is an easy way to make use of all the seats in a car. Ridesharing can be done on a very local scale, such as organizing a carpool among coworkers or students at your child’s school, or it can be used to save money on trips of hundreds of miles or

more. Regardless of how you use it, ridesharing makes it easier and cheaper to get where you’re going, while reducing the number of cars putting harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Of course, it may

mean that you have to take a trip with people you’ve never met before, but that’s why there are vetted ridesharing services to help keep you and your passengers safe.

Zimride.com
— A new spin on ridesharing that uses social networks to enable real connections. In seconds, you can set up a profile, see and book a ride in your area, or post a ride of your own. With over 350,000 Zimride profiles, you can view photos and even music and radio preferences to ensure an enjoyable ride.

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Where is it offered?
The Zimride platform currently serves San Francisco, Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe, New York, and Washington,

DC. However, members have the ability to post a ride going just

about anywhere in North America.

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Who can use it?
Anyone with a Facebook account and a desire to meet new people while traveling for less. Zimride has also partnered with over 100 large universities, companies, and event companies.

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Clients include Stanford, Harvard, all 10 University of Californias, Intuit, Facebook, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and LiveNation. It’s

possible that your school or company is already a member!

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Cost to join?
There is no registration fee for individual riders or drivers. However, corporate or university partners are charged a

fee to join the network.

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What about safety?
Members’ personal contact information is kept private until a booking has been accepted. When a booking

is accepted, passengers are charged but payment is held until 24

hours after the ride is complete. (This also eliminates the awk-

wardness of asking for payment in the car.) If the ride doesn’t

happen or something goes wrong, Zimride support is available.

Zimride also strongly encourages users to leave feedback for each other after a ride.

Ridejoy.com
— A community-driven marketplace for sharing rides.

If you’re going on a trip, you can list extra seat space in your car; if you need to get somewhere, you can find a ride. Friendships included at no extra charge!

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Where is it offered?
In the United States. Ridejoy is based in San Francisco, and most of its users reside on the West Coast.

However, tens of thousands of real people have used Ridejoy to

find rides between 3,832 cities.

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Who can use it?
Adult drivers or passengers looking to fill or occupy empty seats for trips of 50 miles or more. In the future,

Ridejoy hopes to build out its platform to connect drivers and passengers for short distances and commutes as well. Also, Ridejoy is perfect for transporting things other than people! Members have

been known to deliver moving boxes, pets, and other things that

need to move more than 50 miles.

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Cost to join?
Most rides on Ridejoy involve the driver and passenger sharing the costs of the ride — gas, maintenance, etc. Usually, the driver will set the terms of the rideshare, but everyone should What to Share

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feel comfortable negotiating the terms. Passengers pay the driver in cash before the ride is over.

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What about safety?
Ridejoy offers a detailed safety checklist of tips and tricks that will help both drivers and passengers have a positive experience. Users are encouraged to register using their Facebook account to help verify that they are a real person with

friends. Reviews and references allow users to make informed de-

cisions about who they share a ride with.

eRideShare.com
— Founded in 1999, this simple Web platform puts the power of the Internet to work, connecting commuters or

cross-country travelers going the same way. Soon to be available in a mobile app, as well. It boasted over 17,000 users as of 2008.

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Where is it offered?
All over the world, including Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, Scandinavia,

South Africa, United Kingdom, and every state in the United

States.

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Who can use it?
Anyone (including those who don’t own a car, groups, and companies).

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Cost to join?
None. Contributions toward gas etc. are worked out between users.

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What about safety?
eRideShare offers anonymous messaging so that users can interact without sharing personal contact information. Community guidelines encourage users to ask for personal

references and meet each other in a private place prior to the trip.

Carpooling.co.uk
— Carpooling.com wants to make carpooling easy, safe and accessible to all. With just a few clicks, drivers can offer available seats, and passengers can book a ride. People choose who they want to ride with, how much space and comfort they need, where they want to meet, and what they are willing to pay. The service can be accessed from a mobile phone (iPhone, Android), or

Facebook. People can also choose to travel by car, train, bus or plane.

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Where is it offered?
Carpooling.com connects people in over 40

countries. The website is available in seven languages.

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Who can use it?
Individuals, companies, and communities. Register with your email address or through Facebook.

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Cost to join?
The basic website features for finding and offering lifts on carpooling.co.uk are completely free. If a driver decides to use Paypal for online payment, there is a small commission

charged per booking. Drivers decide what each passenger should

contribute, based on Carpooling’s cost calculator.

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What about safety?
All members must provide a copy of their pass-port/drivers license/other official identification that Carpooling uses to verify identity and authenticate an account. All document copies and information is handled extremely carefully. Drivers or passengers who fail to live up to their end of the bargain are put on the “Black List” to warn other users.

Avego.com
— This company has developed a mobile app (for

iPhone or Android) that enables private cars to become part of the public transport network by providing a marketplace for drivers to offer their unused seats to other people in real time. Avego automatically matches drivers with riders, calculates the maximum fee to be charged to the rider, and offers the ride to both users.

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Where is it offered?
Internationally. Avego is used by thousands of individual consumers and private transport operators in 80

countries.

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Who can use it?
Anyone with a smartphone.

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Cost to join?
Registration is free. Avego automatically charges the passenger a fair and predetermined price for the journey (based on a per-mile default rate). Avego manages the payment to the driver.

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What about safety?
Avego comes with many built-in safety features including a mutual rating system for drivers and passengers, the requirement that drivers authenticate riders by entering their auto-generated PIN and GPS logging of all trips.

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Amovens.com
— Amovens is a free service that makes carpooling fun, cheap and easy, whether you’re looking for traveling companions for your daily commute or for a longer road trip. It’s a great way for drivers to offset the cost of travel, or even make a few bucks on the side.

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Where is it offered?
Internationally, including all of the United States and Canada.

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Who can use it?
Any adult who wishes to save money on car trips, short or long. Corporate services also offered.

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Cost to join?
Free to register. Drivers decide individual passenger fees for each trip.

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What about safety?
Amovens has developed several tools to make finding rideshare partners as safe as possible. They keep the vehicle license plate numbers of all drivers on record. Users are able to rate and recommend fellow drivers and passengers, which

helps make the Amovens community as transparent and open as

possible.

Lyft.me
— An on-demand ridesharing service owned and operated by Zimride. Using the Lyft iPhone app, passengers can instantly

request a pickup from a safe, friendly driver who arrives within

minutes.

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Where is it offered?
San Francisco, expanding to new cities in 2013.

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Who can use it?
Local community members who own a smartphone and are interested in giving or getting a fun, safe, and

affordable ride.

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Cost to join?
None. However, rides are provided in exchange for suggested donations. Drivers receive 80% of the amount donated

by passengers.

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What about safety?
Lyft staff carefully selects pre-vetted, trustworthy drivers from the community who swiftly get passengers to

their destinations.

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CarpoolWorld.com
— Carpoolworld.com is a website that match-es commuters or other travelers based on their transportation needs.

Users enter their origin (home) and destination (place of work) and the system automatically shows them a list of similar trips from

other users. The users contact each other by phone, e mail, or SMS

to make ride sharing arrangements.

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Where is it offered?
CarpoolWorld matches trips everywhere on Earth, using the best available geocoding data.

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Who can use it?
Individuals, businesses, municipalities, schools, or other institutions.

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Cost to join?
CarpoolWorld is free for individuals, while groups must pay monthly or annual fees of $25/month per 1,000 users,

or $5,000/year per 100,000 users, whichever is less.

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What about safety?
Members are able to view full profiles of riders and drivers before booking. Private messaging available. No

one is ever obligated to accept a passenger just because they have been matched. Private groups ensure trips with those you know.

FareShareNYC.com
— Fare/Share is a mobile application that helps New Yorkers find cabmates for similar routes. Empty seats are always a waste, even when the car isn’t yours! Fare/Share users will be able to quickly enter their destination, while a server will find nearby riders whose routes converge.

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Where is it offered?
New York City.

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Who can use it?
Any adult with access to a smartphone.

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Cost to join?
None. However, when you have successfully met up with your riders and you’re ready to leave the cab, the app will tell you roughly how much you owe the other rider. At that point, you

can either pay with cash, or pay via Paypal and have the payment

routed through Fare/Share, which takes a 5 percent “convenience

fee,” and guarantees the transfer of the rest to the other rider.

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What about safety?
Common sense is key. Never get into a cab with a shady passenger.

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Bike Sharing

Bikes are making a comeback all over the world as people tire of the smog, traffic, and parking difficulties that come along with driving.

Many surveys show that most people would like to travel by bike,

but they list access to a bike as the major barrier. Not everyone owns or has the place to store their own bike. Still others use public transportation to commute from the suburbs to a bigger city, and then

find themselves dependent on walking or taxis to get around during the day.

Sharing makes it easy to use bicycles without the burden of own-

ership or maintenance. Most bike-sharing programs are designed

for short commutes and errands. Users borrow a bike, ride to their destination, and then return the bike to a nearby kiosk. Bike-sharing programs can be executed on a very small scale or can involve city-wide fleets of hundreds of bikes. Some are free, operating more like bike libraries, while others charge hourly or daily rental fees to offset the cost of (often, sophisticated) bike tracking, locking, and booking systems. Some provide safety equipment like helmets, lights and mirrors, but unless required by law, this is usually the responsibility of the individual biker.