Making carpooling a reality. Almost.
My commute in Atlanta was an hour each way—on a good day. I lived far enough out and far enough away from any common interstate corridors that public transport wasn’t an option. Neither was remote work (where I was working at the time).
I tried a number of carpooling options: vanpooling, trying to track down people at work that I could carpool with, using kludgey state-sponsored apps for finding commuters near you. None of it worked well.
The main hurdles I found were:
it was almost impossible to find other commuters willing to carpool
you couldn’t commit to a schedule once you’d found someone willing to carpool.
It occurred to me that there should be an app for this, so I started brainstorming an app that would let you:
find other commuters who both lived near you and worked near you,
find rides (or riders) whenever you wanted rather than requiring a schedule,
make it cheap to ride but financially worthwhile to drive.
Finding other commuters
The very nature of an app connected to a pool of like-minded users makes finding other commuters easier than trying to ferret them out via local churches and clubs or chance encounters in the check out line. Uber and Lyft had already proved that people would accept rides from strangers if there was some sort of social proof that the person was reputable.
The difficulty is in getting a critical mass of carpoolers so that when you open the app for the first time, it’s not empty. I decided that if the app were going to succeed, it had to be released in a single city—say, Atlanta—and grow a user base there. If anyone else downloaded the app in another locale, they would be asked to input their email address to be notified when Commuterie came to their area. This would allow Commuterie to slowly build a database of cities with a built-in user base. We could see where we were getting traction the most and release there next.
This approach would also allow us to concentrate marketing dollars in one locale, blizting the business districts with ads encouraging people to download the app and connect with other commuters. Without a critical mass of users who all commuted in the same general area, the app would be dead in the water.
Another arm of the marketing is to integrate with both municipal and business Clear Air Commuter programs. Many cities offer grants or promotion if you can demonstrate that your product will help with traffic congestion. Likewise, many businesses incentivize employees to use public transit or carpools. These sources of both promotion and income would allow the app to get traction with highly-qualified leads quickly. This helps with building critical mass and getting a thriving ecosystem of commuters using the app at the same time.
Making ad hoc work
I conducted some surveys among my social networks and found that the number one issue for other potential carpoolers was—by far—the scheduling problem. How could you commit to a carpool with a constantly changing schedule?
Commuterie’s central premise is that you never have to commit to a carpool. You can carpool whenever you want with whomever you want. Carpool with different people every time. Choose to be the driver or the rider. It’s totally flexible.
Of course, this raises some friction because now you have to decide every day—at one of the most harried and uncaffeinated times of the day—when and with whom you’re going to carpool. This made the process of choosing a carpool each day the central challenge of the app. If I couldn’t get people to almost effortlessly be able to create or join a carpool, then the whole app would fail. If I couldn’t shift the time that people create or check for carpools to an earlier time, the app would fail.
To make the app effortless, I structured the onboarding process to require only a home and work address. No login, email, or profile info. This allows us to show users whether there is an active carpooling community in their area before they commit to logging in. (In fact, users never have to create an account unless they want to actually join or start a carpool.) Once we have the home and work address, the home page of the app is simply today’s list of available carpools with a large button to start your own carpool for that day. This means users are only ever one or two taps away from joining or creating a carpool.
I also realized notifications could play a huge part in getting people to shift the time that they join or start carpools away from the rushed early morning. The night before a weekday, users could get a notification telling them to join or set up a carpool for the next day. This would give people time to onboard and help remind drivers to set up their carpool the night before so riders would have time to check the boards and find a ride. Letting drivers also set up recurring carpools could help pre-populate the carpool list with rides.
Running the numbers
Doing rides ad hoc is pretty much Uber’s territory; but doing rides cheaply is definitely not their business model. In order for Commuterie to work, drivers had to already be making the trip—not doing a taxi service—so they’d be grateful for a little extra cash. Riders would also need fairly cheap rides because otherwise they’ll just hop in their car and skip the carpool entirely.
In thinking through Commuterie’s business model, I knew that doing payments for every ride, every morning could get old. Having to find new rides every morning was a stress enough. So I tried a couple of models with a credit structure. You’d buy credits and then use them over a period of time. That reduced the friction of each transaction with a driver. It also reduced credit card transaction fees.
The trouble is, it’s credits. People like credits about as much as they like being Rick-Rolled. Buying credits always seems to obfuscate how much you’re really spending and most people think buying credits is itself a huge annoyance.
Fortunately, while I was working out this problem, Apple came out with Apple Pay integrated into the OS and, with the use of Touch ID, payments became much simpler. You could now pay with one tap rather than trying to enter credit card information every morning—or better yet, without Commuterie having to store the user’s credit card information and all the maintenance and security issues that raises.
Alas...
Commuterie is, unfortunately, still just an idea—a well thought-out idea and one I think has a lot of potential. Especially as I watch Uber and Lyft attempt the carpooling space, I think there’s a place for an app which allows anyone to ride or drive, removes the need for committing to a schedule, and makes it as affordable as traditional carpooling.
