26th March 2012
Whenever traveling, I remember the words of my Mom – "Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t eat anything from them". I wonder if it applies to the time I car pooled in Germany.
The day I would have remembered only as my ex-girlfriends birthday, it was a whole new experience in Germany. I was in Berlin for the weekend and had to return back to Dresden. There are number of ways to travel within Germany, but the most liked by Germans is “Mitfahrgelegenheit”, translated “Car pooling” in English.
I contacted Norman Martens, for the ride, just 3 hours before, with a simple 10 Euros one way ride. He was driving an Audi A4 from Berlin Warschauer strasse to Dresden Neustadt at 2300 Hrs that night.
This process is simple. Suppose if I am traveling to Dresden alone and have 3 vacant seats in my car, I will put up this information on the Mitfahrgelegenheit website, along with, what is called an Angebote (offer). Here I give my mail id, contact number and the amount that I will charge. Usually for cars like Citroen, Hyundai, Honda, Ford etc., you have to pay 4 Euros for 100 kilometers, while if you travel in Volkswagen, BMW, Audi, Mercedes or Porsche, you have to pay 6-7 Euros for 100 kilometers.
This site is effective in more than 6 European countries, (Germany, Great Britain, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Greece and Poland) where the commuters and travellers can post details of their rides. This service not only gives you an opportunity to meet new people, but also helps saving a lot of fuel. It is also bliss for those, who are passionate about travelling in expensive and fast cars.
Since January 2009, 170,824 friendships and 6 marriages have resulted from this portal, according to the company website. Apart from this, it is also a great way to cut down the automobile related environmental damage. It is estimated that 500,000 tonnes of CO2 has been saved through 15,000,000 trips.
I really liked this online service. It is a good example of optimization and management.
WHY IS IT SUCCESSFUL IN GERMANY?
a. Germany is an average sized country, so you can travel from one extreme to the other in couple of hours.
b. Traveling via trains and flights are quite expensive here. Trust me, in most cases, trains are expensive than Lufthansa flights.
c. Germans like speed, and what could be the better ride than traveling 200kmph on the world’s best roads – The Autobahn.
d. Its hassle free and one can book it instantly (I booked a Mitfahrgelegenheit for my friend at a short notice of 30 minutes)
e. The starting and end point are marked on an embedded Google map. So one can choose the deal, in which the rider drops the commuter nearest to his doorstep.
WHY CAN’T IT BE SUCCESSFUL IN INDIA?
a. Safety is a big issue. People in India usually do not trust strangers.
b. Cheap alternative transport. Indian Railways are still the number one choice for Indians to travel from one city to another because despite often running late, it is cheap and has a good value for money.
c. Mostly we Indians are introvert and quite skeptic about strangers. We also have a tendency of taking each other for granted. J This is not the case with Germans.
d. Travelling long distances by cars is not safe in India.
e. We usually travel with a lot of luggage, so it can be a problem for accommodating those heavy trunks and suitcases (अटैची).
I came across a portal, www.roadsharing.com, where people have taken some initiatives for car-pooling in India, but it is not very effective. To optimize this, it is important to have profile based information on the portal.
Maybe in a few years from now, we can have a similar system in India. Adopting such a system will solve problems like traffic jams, CO2 emissions, etc. Also it will help people interact with one another and have long term friendships. Let us look forward to it. J
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I think not only trains and flights are costlier but maintaining cars are also costly in European country. Therefore car pooling is beneficial for both the parties. Number of motor vehicles per 1000 persons in India and Germany are 15(2006 data) and 554 (2008 data). So now you can guess why is it possible in Germany and not in India. Reasons you have mentioned for unpopularity of car pooling is true but car pooling will be more effective if this can be done in intra city, people going towards same location (office ) can use same car instead of using two or more....this will reduce the congestion and emission as well.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope people will understand and will start riding together not only to save money and environment but for interaction also.