Wheels within wheels

Wheels within wheels

While automobiles in India have moved light years ahead in technology, style and service, traffic in most of our cities remains primitive. Urban transport, on the whole, is polluted, unsafe and expensive. For Mumbai and Delhi, which present a grim picture of bumper-to-bumper congestion, carpooling could be a possible way to reduce overall vehicular use.

On the anvil is Koolpool, designed by Mumbai-based Joshua D'Souza. Koolpool is an innovative business model based on rewarding users, an aspect that has hit a snag as Section 66, Motor Vehicles Act 1988 requires a vehicle to obtain a permit for any hire and reward program. In fact, the scheme has been hanging fire at the transport commissioner's office for over two years.

Slow crawl
Koolpool has done the usual rounds. B I Nagrale, then transport commissioner, Mumbai liked it but didn't give a formal approval. A year later, the file passed to his successor S D Shinde, who says it's the Maharashtra State Road Transportation that will decide the matter. Meanwhile, Omar Ahmed, joint transport commissioner, New Delhi, Delhi says his department will support the project once it's launched.

Leena Mahendale, executive director, Petroleum Conservation Research Association (pcra) says, "The proposal is very well thought out, but lacks legal clearance so far. We advocate carpooling and wish it could be implemented." She has offered to route D'Souza's proposal through the pcra.

A common need In Mumbai, the scheme can tap a potential 50,000 to 2,00,000 rides on well laid out routes like Western Express Highway, Eastern Express Highway, Swami Vivekanand Road, Link Road and Central Road. Assuming 50,000 vehicles use the system and each of them has even two riders, who also do a return journey -- then fuel saving alone would be Rs 1,50,000 (at 1.5 litres used for 20 kilometres per day). Once it gets going, the model can be replicated in other cities like Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai as well. The project will provide a common platform for people with common destinations and timings who can share transport through carpooling. The company is looking at two types of users: car owners using their own cars and car users, who may not own cars or do not wish to put their vehicles on the network.

Membership to Koolpool comes with an identity card, an account balance and a mobile phone. Registration fees or annual membership fees for car owners would be Rs 250 and for car users, would be Rs 750. In addition, members would need a pre-paid card worth Rs 750 -- equal to 750 points in the member's account balance. Each use would deduct an amount from this pre-paid amount. A car owner picking up a car user would gain 20 points as reward. These points can then be redeemed against specials offers from Koolpool.

The Kool ride
The entire operation is based on short messaging service (sms). The car owner gets sms alerts of persons travelling on his route, while users get alerts of cars travelling on their route. Users get the ride, while owners get reward points.

While the legalities take their own time, here's hoping carpooling arrives soon on our congested roads. 12jav.net12jav.net