While I wouldn't use it personally, there's a practice in the Washington DC area (possibly others as well) known as slugging, which is essentially organized hitchhiking. You go to a specific place and wait for someone going your direction who wants to take advantage of the carpool lanes. From what I've heard from people who use it, it works remarkably well. My point is, yes, there is a market of people who will take rides with strangers.

http://www.slug-lines.com/

Be careful you don't run afoul of taxi laws. Cars are only inefficient means of transport because they're usually 3/4 empty. The taxicab companies would like to keep them that way, and municipalities are depressingly complicit. (Google for "taxi medallion" to see what I mean.) If you start getting successful, expect to hear from their lawyers.

It sounds like the same arguments that protect torrent sites will protect this company. They aren't providing taxi service, they are just telling you about other people interested in sharing a ride. No different than any discussion forum or whatever.

I do this already in the Bay Area in California. There are several carpool pickup points in the East Bay (Oakland/Berkeley) that drop off in downtown San Francisco. I either pick up people here or hitch a ride every morning. The advantage is that you can use the carpool lane which saves 10-15min during rush-hour and a $4 toll.

Do you have to pay when you are hitching?

casual carpool

http://www.ridenow.org/carpool/

as much as i like the idea, i'd much rather find someone to ride with on my own, in person, from my own social circle. that removes the reliability and trust issues.

We are planning to introduce a "group code" feature, which allows people within your known social circle to use and find rides among each other. Would that work?

We are currently shying away from another facebook app, but maybe that's the way to go for this.

for success, you're probably going to need social hooks, and facebook apps is a good way.

the code feature could work to solve the issue, yes. or you could just allow drivers to administer how public their rides are, only allowing people to join if they are directly given the link to their ride or whatever.

Another alternative that removes the reliability and trust issues is a formal vanpool program run by a local transit agency.

I would have used it. I used to ride with a van pool. Links:

http://www.vanpool.com/ (sponsored by Enterprise rent-a-car)

http://www.vanpoolusa.com/ (sponsored by VPSI Inc.)

This was in Southern California, where public transportation has been endangered or extinct for decades. The arrangement sucked, and my current commute sucks enough that I'd carpool again if the meetup time wasn't 5:45 a.m.

Edit: I poked at it a little, and noticed that it doesn't ask for a radius when saving a new commute (no matches). Is the matching algorithm fuzzy enough to figure out when I'm "close enough" to someone else's route? Does it match along the whole route, so I could pick someone up midway?

Indeed, no need to specify the radius. It would not consider a match if you have to go too far out of your way to pick up someone else.

I take the subway to work, so "Yes."

If you can have a system that's like mass transit, but competitive -- e.g. if there's a policy that could have positive or negative effects, the transit system doesn't have to try it all at once -- that would be a pleasant improvement.

We have a bus system that I love, so "Yes".

The company that runs them tries a sort of service like you've described, but I have anecdotal evidence that the trick is no one wants to drive. Part of it is that they will provide a vehicle and so they want a sole person to be responsible for it, which isn't applicable to y'all. The other thing is that a lot of people are like me: traffic makes me an angry person and I'd much rather play around on my laptop or read than drive.

I don't want to sound like a nay-sayer. I definitely think that there's a market for this. However, I'd expect some strong regional trending (which is to say poor adoption in some cities and awesome adoption in others).

No. I like having flexible hours.

Indeed this would be a challenge. If you have no predictability with time or even dates of travel, then http://www.ride4all.com wouldn't be very useful for you.

Also, if you have a short commute, say 5 miles or less, then you probably wouldn't bother.

But if your commute is 10-15+ miles, and as gas price increases (say to $6/gallon), would you reconsider?

I live in SF bay area, and I flinch whenever seeing tons of people in single-occupant cars stuck in traffic, day in and day out.

I'm probably not your target demographic:

I'd rather miss rush hour, and I'm currently lucky enough to be in a position where gas prices don't matter much to me (~10mi commute, occasional telecommute, hybrid car, good income, low expenses).

Indeed, your product is suitable for people who work fixed hours, 9 to 5 and such.

I guess you should promote it to people in government, manufacturing or retail jobs.

Cool idea. A couple of good points made in the comments: 1. Flexible hours 2. Privacy/Safety issues

The first point is common to all ride-share including mass-transit. I think you need to consider a mobile strategy that addresses a scenario like "I'm ready to go. Anyone going my way?" or "I'm headed out. Anyone need a ride?"

Privacy/Safety is implicit but important. You partly address that via gender specification but it needs to go further like "I'm a girl is only willing to share with other girls".

Anyway, a nice start. If you're serious then there is much work ahead.

It doesn't respond to http://ride4all.com (or didn't... now it did... now it's just slow...)

Sadly, being in the US, I would plaster it with some kind of legal disclaimer about not taking responsibility for anything untoward happening. And maybe some plain English safety tips, as security is certainly in many people's minds.

Regarding the response time, it's really out of our hands (and in Google AppEngine's hands really). Hopefully that will improve if indeed Google AE had issues at the time you clicked.

Regarding disclaimer, yeah, we thought about that. Indeed need to add that. Thanks David.

It responds fine on the www. address - it's the other one that seems slow to load. Weird.

No. I suspect that for many people their car is a sanctuary where they can actually get some peace and quiet twice a day, listen to their own music, and generally get some "me" time. That said, there are still lots of people who would, so go for it!

I've done it. I don't have a car, and I used to work at a place 40km away (i.e, outside comfortable cycling distance). Hence, I got rides with co-workers I otherwise had no contact with.

I would use it. Nice implementation too. Maybe you could let people set start and end points using clicks on the Google map?

Very cool idea. I would add an ebay like trust rating to account for punctuality, safe driving, etc.

People have been known to do much worse things with strangers to save money for gas ;)

No! I want my privacy.

There is also facebook and college campus centric http://zimride.com

i think its a fantastic idea, this saves a lot of time, money and energy ... this idea will be instantly super-hit amongst south asians (india, pakistan, bangladesh, srilanka and may be china as well) - you might be surprised to know that people from these countries are used to share rides with strangers, in fact it is a norm in some parts of these countries... there is absolutely no fear or privacy or any other kind of issue amongst people from these countries - in fact there is something like share-a-taxi program in many part of these countries. Following is what i would suggest:

1.target everyone but make a special effort to focus on south asians.

2. make your web-tool extremely simple to use. use simple GUI with simple english so that a person who is not that familiar with the language or computer can also use it with ease.

3. Also after getting initial success try to make features available in multiple language, this will increase your market by senior citizens (again south asians) who dont know english.

4. Two parties should be able to connect instantly, here u may add some kind of web-to-cell (and cell-to-web) tools. so for example if i'm already out of my home/work but if i can still pick-up someone on the way then i should be able to know that via my cell phone.

5. You will also come to know what routes are more popular in what part of the city, this should make you able to add few more features that saves user's time in getting a ride right away.

6. This is most important feature: add a tool where 2 people speaking same language get connected right away - this will create a comfort zone and your service will be hit just by adding this feature .... TRUST ME ON THIS !!!

i agree with #6 - this is something like dating a person who speaks your language so that there is this comfort of sharing things while commuting - this also creates instant connection between 2 people, an ice-breaker.

absolutely, few features should be just copied from dating websites; like what language you prefer, or whats your regular route and what time of the day - bunch of people going for grocery at the same time and place can get connected to share ride almost on daily basis. there are many software professional from india (on H1B visa) whose wives get bored by staying at home doing nothing, this kind of service will connect wives to do things together.... a social connection in itself (wow!)

Thanks! We'll definitely keep these in mind.