Wheel Deal

At websites such as easy2commute.com,carpooling.in and poolmycar.com,you can find people who use the same route to work at the same time as you are and get together as a carpool.

Since its launch a year ago,easy2commute.com has 3,900 users from the NCR. There is no registration fee. To become a member,you will have to provide your corporate e-mail address and once the HR department of the website verifies the details,you are free to explore the site to find fellow travellers. “We function like a matrimonial site,bringing like-minded individuals together. Then it depends on their compatibility and understanding. They can decide whether they want to go car-pooling with someone or not,” says Rajan,30,who is part of a carpool that travels from Gurgaon to Noida.

For Vijay Bhardwaj,head of administration of an outsource company,PKC,in Gurgaon,the 40-km commute from his home in Rohini meant high fuel bills and dreadful traffic. But for the past seven months,Bhardwaj has teamed with two others from his locality who travel in the same direction. “We alternate our cars,so there is no question of paying each other,” says Bhardwaj,who is saving Rs 3,000 every month.

Carpooling.in operates on the same principle as easy2commute and has carpools in Hyderabad ,Bangalore and Mumbai as well.

Poolmycar.com was set up by IT consultant Vinay Arora,who moved to Delhi from Chandigarh two years ago. The website was a solution to his own commuting dilemmas. “Once the site was up,I found people in my neighbourhood willing to team up with me,” says Arora,who claims to have 55,000 registered users from across the country.

Megacarpool.com will be launched only in June,but claims to have about 1,000 members already. To join the website,you need to be a registered car owner and provide valid identification documents and a proof of residence. “This is for safety reasons,” says Kamal Kumar,a businessman in Greater Kailash I. His procedures are expensive. Once you become a member,you will be given a smart card and a GPS/GPRS-enabled touchscreen device that will be installed in your car for approximately Rs 10,000. He says once the service is operational,when a member needs a vehicle immediately,they can beep other users who are in the neighbourhood to help out. And reduce the carbon footprint.