Carpooling is shared use of a car, in particular for commuting to work, often by people who each have a car but travel together to save costs. There are sometimes special facilities for carpoolers, including high occupancy vehicle lanes specifically for cars with multiple riders.

The incidence of carpooling may be greatly increased by an application of location reporting mobile phones that uses features of social networking. See future of carpooling.

Advantages

• As most cars are designed for 5 people but only occupied by 1, car pooling has great potential improve the capacity of congested traffic corridors in cities, with minimal investment in infrastructure.

Disadvantages

• Drivers carry the additional burden of potential legal action from passengers in case of an accident.

• Car pooling combines the disadvantages of public transport (lack of privacy, fixed timetables) with the disadvantages of the automobile (low safety, high fuel consumption, high cost of labour). Well designed, dedicated BRT systems have proven a faster and cheaper alternative to car pooling in big cities.

Contrast with: single occupant vehicle

External links

• - Definitions and benefits of carpooling/ridesharing
• Erideshare.com - popular site which allows users to meet carpool partners online in the US & Canada
• Mitfahrzentrale.de - Germany's ridesharing portal to domestic and inter-Europe destinations (in German)
• Turen.dk - Denmark's ridesharing Website (in Danish)
• Liftpool.co.uk - Free carpool service for the UK and Europe
• Compartir.org - Primarily Spain-based ridesharing website but also goes all over Europe
• Ecoland - Dynamic Carpool Software for mobile phones