KOCHI: The response to the carpooling initiative that was launched for the State’s IT professionals about two months ago in Thiruvananthapuram has been described as “pretty good” by its promoters.
“We have around 850 registered users for the site. In fact the Technopark authorities said that there was a drastic reduction in the number of cars being parked within the Technopark campus. Out of the registered users, 80 per cent belong to Technopark and the remaining 20 per cent to Infopark (Kochi),” said Binu Sankar, Chief Executive Officer, Group of Technopark Companies (GTech).
With fuel costs rising and motoring along crowded city roads becoming a nightmare, the idea of carpooling did not come a day too late. The initiative was started in May 2009 by GTech in partnership with Palnar Transmedia, a software development firm in Technopark under a Green Computing Initiative. The web site
www.parkcarpool.in is targeted at the IT Professionals of Technopark and Infopark.
Carpooling is a process by which a group of people share vehicles and take turns to drive so as to minimise fuel costs. With the launch of the website, described as the first of its kind in Kerala, IT professionals could register themselves and try to share vehicles with others to travel to mutually convenient destinations.
But carpooling also takes on a different dimension because of larger issue it seeks to address: cutting down on fuel usage and thereby helping in the world wide initiative to counter global warming.
May of those who use carpooling are often quite aware of this ‘green’ dimension to their activity.
The web site displays a list of daily trips and also other scheduled trips on its home page.
“About 85 per cent of the trips are confined to Thiruvananthapuram. Seventeen to twenty carpools have already been formed in Technopark. Close to 90 people are using this facility. It is to be noted that 80 per cent of the companies provide bus transport to their employees in Technopark,” said Mr. Sankar.
The scope of the carpooling initiative covers not only places within the State but also those outside like Madurai and Coimbatore, going by the list of places available in the options form on the web site. But the most commonly used long distance routes are Thiruvananthapuram - Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram - Kottayam. The maximum number of trips is in the offing generally on Fridays around 7 to 8.
Though a large number of Kochi-based IT companies figure on the website, the use of the service seemed to be largely confined to Thiruvananthapuram and Technopark.
“We are in the process of setting up a unit in Infopark and we plan to induct 20 members into this forum. I am meeting the CEOs of Infopark in the second week of August to solicit their support for the carpooling initiative and also to promote it within the Infopark campus,” said Mr. Sankar.
Carpooling initiatives in other parts of the country have been gathering momentum, with a number of carpooling websites being launched in recent years. Awareness about carpooling was an issue in Kerala compared to other metros and GTech was planning to undertake more programmes in this regard.
Security is an issue for some when it comes to carpooling: a good number of women professionals do not seem to regard it as a safe mode of travel, given the way they have responded to it in the big metros. And those who opt for it generally prefer women co-passengers.
“We have taken some precautionary measures like registration using the official company e-mail id and employee number while using the website for carpooling. For women carpoolers we have requested them to look at carpooling within the same company and also to meet up with the other carpoolers on the campus to avoid untoward incidents,” said Mr. Sankar.
