The service, called RideWith, is aimed at connecting drivers on their way to work with passengers traveling along the same route. There’s obviously major competition in this space, most notably Uber’s carpooling service UberPool, but RideWith appears to initially be focused on a different market.
DriveWith will target commuters, on their way to/from work, taking what are known as incidental trips. Incidental trips are rides that would have been taken regardless of whether they were shared or not. Uber currently offers a shared ride feature called UberPool in select cities but it’s unclear what percentage of these shared rides are incidental trips. There’s actually a good argument that Uber’s low fares and services like UberPool could be putting more cars on the road by making transportation so accessible. Many passengers who may have opted for walking, public transportation or even carpooling in the past have now switched to Uber.
The Problem With Carpooling Carpooling has traditionally struggled because of the cost (not always monetary either) of finding a suitable match. Typing out a flyer for carpoolers, printing it and putting it on a bulletin board at work isn’t exactly the model of efficiency. But technology has made that process a lot easier. We know that there are millions of solo rides every single day with lots of people headed to/from the same general area so it makes sense to figure out a way to combine a majority of those rides. Tech solutions will handle that problem with ease but the real question is whether there is enough incentive for these drivers to partake.
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