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Ride sharing is the shared use of a car or van by the driver and one or more passengers. Also known as carpooling and vanpooling, ride sharing can ease the cost and stress of commuting through the use of a private or jointly hired vehicle for shared trips.
Ride sharing decreases the costs incurred by repetitive or long distance driving such as gas and tolls. By reducing the number of cars on the road, ride sharing reduces emissions and the need for parking spaces. Time spent commuting can also be shortened by ride sharing. Transportation authorities often designate high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to support ride sharing due to the resulting traffic reduction and increased use of mass transit.
Companies or local authorities often encourage ride sharing by providing listing facilities (bulletin boards or websites), designated pick-up areas, preferential parking and advice. Third-party ride share agencies also provide services in certain areas. In recent years, ride sharing has grown more efficient and widespread through use of the internet and mobile phones.
Working late? Have an unexpected midday emergency? Don't worry, you won't be stranded at work. Commute using an alternative form of transportation and you could be eligible for a free ride home. Many ride share agencies and programs offer Guaranteed Ride Home (GRH) options. Also referred to as “Emergency Ride Home,” GRH services helps increase mass transit use, ride sharing and reduces harmful emissions by giving commuters a way to leave work in the event of an emergency or unexpected overtime.
Alameda County Guaranteed Ride Home Program
Northern CA. The Alameda County CMA Guaranteed Ride Home Program does just what it says. It guarantees you a ride home from work when unexpected circumstances arise. All employers located in Alameda County are eligible.
AlterNetRides is the premier way to encourage all forms of alternative transportation: carpooling, vanpooling, biking, walking, using public transportation and more.
Arlington's Car-Free Diet is the easy, fun way to see how incredible it can feel to live a car-free or car-lite lifestyle. Each time you leave your car at home — choosing instead to ride ART or Metro, bike, walk or telework - you can save money, improve your health and clean our environment. To find out exactly how much going car-free can change your life, check out our Car-Free Diet Calculator!
Avego is a service accessible via the iPhone or an average cell phone that allows you to get rides at a moment’s notice. The service uses GPS to allow drivers and riders to find each other. Via the GPS function you get exact directions indicating where to pick up and drop people off, and also get a running tally of how much the ride costs. After the ride is over, both the driver and passenger can rate one another.
Tampa Bay, FL. The Bay Area Commuter Services, Inc. (BACS)Bay Area Commuter Services (BACS) assists commuter and businesses in ways to both conserve and cut the costs associated with the commute to and from work. Programs include car pooling, van pooling, ERH, and Bike Buddy.
CabCorner.com is a global, mobile web-based, cab-sharing platform that connects commuters headed in the same direction.
Ride matching service covering Canada and the U.S.
CarpoolWorld has been around since 2000, and continues to provide matching services for those looking for drivers and passengers. Also offers the ability to set up carpool groups for your company, club, sports team or just about anything else you can think of.
Carpooling.net is a fast and easy to use platform for carpooling. Here at carpooling.net you can search for other people looking for carpools, or you can register your own route that can attract other people to go with you.
The first and only rideshare application on a "location aware" mobile platform. Now available on the Apple iPhone App Store and Facebook.
Northern CA. Commute.org is San Mateo County’s Transportation Demand Management Agency whose mission is to reduce the number of single occupancy vehicles traveling in, to and through San Mateo County, reducing vehicle emissions resulting in improved air quality.
CommuterChoice.com website provides an open service to employers, commuters, and Commuter Choice service providers throughout the United States. CommuterChoice.com’s mission is to help employers connect with service providers in their local areas.
New York City. CommuterLink helps people improve their commute to work by encouraging the use of carpooling, mass transit and other alternatives to driving alone. The only "alternative transportation management" organization in New York City, it provides a broad range of free services to businesses and commuters in the five boroughs, including an online ridematching service for carpoolers, mass transit itineraries, customized Commuter Benefits programs for companies like pre-tax subsidies, and much more.
Southern CA. Carpooling, vanpooling, GRH.
Offers a simple bulletin board format organized by city and/or state. The rideshare postings are found in the Community section.
Designed with safety in mind, users create carpools with families they know. Email and text alerts help streamline the process of finding and sharing rides for your kids to all those soccer games, dance rehearsals, piano classes and hockey practices. If you’re unable to drive on your scheduled day messages are sent to other parents in the carpool asking them to cover for you. Each time the request is declined, the message is passed to the next parent.
Easy Street is a statewide commuter van service sponsored by The Connecticut Department of Transportation and operated by The Rideshare Company.
Offers real-time carpool, vanpool and ride share matching.
Connects commuters or cross-country travelers going the same destination.
A ride sharing system that charges $.99 for creating a post as either a driver or passenger, and allows you to post reviews of the experience after it’s over.
Uses a system of alerts to notify users when friends or interest groups are going places they want to go. Turns social networks into travel networks.
A service focusing on corporate websites to allow your employees to find people they can share rides with, providing them with public transit schedules, and more.
Used by customers in 21 states and internationally. GreenRide supports climate action and sustainability initiatives by providing an easy to use solution that reduces transportation related greenhouse gas emissions and tracks the savings.
An international bulletin for hitchhikers and drivers to find each other.
An online service using high precision trip matching to find the best carpool match.
MetroPool provides free commuter services to employers and commuters with the support of the Connecticut and New York Departments of Transportation. Services are available to commuters traveling to destinations in Fairfield County, Connecticut; and Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam, Dutchess, and Ulster Counties in New York. MetroPool encourages the use of transportation alternatives such as carpooling, vanpooling, riding the bus or train, bicycling, walking, compressed work weeks and telecommuting.
New Jersey. Sharing your ride to work - in a carpool, vanpool, bus, train, shuttles or a combination of these - is called ridesharing. Commuting just 15 miles each way can cost as much as $ 1,764 per year. Sharing the ride with just one other person can cut your commuting costs in half.
Members are rewarded for using alternative forms of transportation such as carpooling, vanpooling, biking, walking, telecommuting or public transit. Free to join and free to use and is supported by sponsors who reward NuRide members for reducing global warming, traffic congestion and energy consumption.
The largest online carpooling community in the world. It facilitates ridesharing for hundreds of thousands of people and help leading brand name organizations carpool their employees, customers and fans. PickupPal is an intelligent route matching system that puts passengers and drivers going the same way together.
Offers global ridesharing solutions and luxury hybrid transportation services.
Denver, CO. RideArrangers helps businesses and individuals avoid traffic congestion and reduce pollution by promoting and providing transportation options including Car pool, van pool and GRH.
Northern CA. Ride Now! is an online and telephone-based system that allows commuters to make one-time ride matches close to their departure time.
Software company provides ride matching, ride sharing and car pool matching services for municipalities, universities and corporations.
RideLinks offers web-based ridematching to help them find carpool partners within your organization. Join forces with neighboring companies to create greater matching potential. Manage and track your program with user-friendly reports.
Free matching service for vanpooling and carpooling.
DART’s RideShare Delaware is a service of DART First State dedicated to aiding commuters with finding and using alternative modes of transportation. DART’s RideShare Delaware offers free ridematching services for commuters working in Delaware as well as for parents of Delaware school students; an emergency ride home benefit for registered commuters actively ridesharing to work; vanpool services; and, transportation benefit assistance to employers in Delaware.
RideshareOnline.com is the resource for commuting options in the Northwest. This regional project is managed by Washington State Department of Transportation and is currently available in Washington and Idaho.
RideshareOnline.com assists commuters by providing free carpool, vanpool and bicycle ridematching services, bus/rail options, SchoolPool carpooling programs for parents, and information about the benefits of teleworking from home.
Atlanta, GA. RideSmart matches commuters who live and work in Georgia with possible carpool, vanpool, and bike partners; existing vanpools with open seats; and available transit options(currently limited to MARTA routes). RideSmart also offers the Guaranteed Ride Home (GRH) program.
How would you like to share the driving and cut your commute costs? RideSpring makes it easier than ever before to find carpool partners where you work. You can also win great prizes every month for using any type of alternative commute.
Phoenix, AZ. ShareTheRide uses state-of-the-art mapping technology to search for matches around or along your commuting route. It displays those matches to you on an interactive Google map, and allows you to send an e-mail to potential matches.
South Florida Commuter Services
The South Florida Commuter Services is a one-stop shop for commuter information as the Florida Department of Transportation's (FDOT) regional commuter assistance program. The program is dedicated to improving traffic conditions by promoting alternatives to drive-alone commuting.
The Rideshare Company improves the daily business commute for thousands of Northeasterners with innovative transportation solutions. It operates the third largest vanpool network in the country.
Kansas City, MO. The RideShare Connection (formerly the Carpool Connection) is a free, easy and convenient service that connects commuters throughout Greater Kansas City, Lawrence and St. Joseph who are interested in carpooling.
Billed as a commuter advocacy site, TrafficBulldog offers up news and suggestions on reducing traffic congestion via carpooling and other suggestions.
Based in British Columbia, Carpool.ca actively promotes the development of rideshare programs while raising public awareness of the environmental and economic benefits of rideshare programs.
Provides commuter rideshare services to Canada and the United States.
VPSI is the largest private provider of commuter vanpool transportation services in the world, maintaining a fleet of over 5,000 vans and accommodating over 25 million passenger-trips annually.
The world's leading social online ride-sharing company. Zimride works with companies, universities, bands, and municipalities around the globe. The ride-sharing community is based on simple and intuitive software, which combines Google Maps, familiar social networking components and a proprietary ride-matching algorithm.