page_title: Carpool
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Carpool / History
caption_attribution_description: English: World War II image from the United States government. From archive.org: "When You Ride Alone You Ride With Hitler&#160;! Join a car-sharing club TODAY&#160;!" by Weimer Pursell, 1943. Printed by the Government Printing Office for the Office of Price Administration. Source: NARA. Français&#160;: Image du gouvernement des États-Unis durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Provenant d'archive.org&#160;: «&#160;Lorsque vous conduisez seul, vous voyagez avec Hitler&#160;! Adhérez à un club de co-voiturage DÈS AUJOURD'HUI&#160;!&#160;» Par Weimer Pursell, 1943. Imprimé par le Bureau d'imprimerie gouvernementale pour le Bureau du contrôle des prix. Source&#160;: NARA. Русский: "Едешь один - везёшь Гитлера! Сегодня же вступи в клуб совместного использования автомобилей!" Американский агитационный плакат времен Второй Мировой войны, призывающий автовладельцев экономить бензин и автопокрышки.
context_page_description: Carpooling is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car, and prevents the need for others to have to drive to a location themselves.
  By having more people using one vehicle, carpooling reduces each person's travel costs such as: fuel costs, tolls, and the stress of driving. Carpooling is also a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way to travel as sharing journeys reduces air pollution, carbon emissions, traffic congestion on the roads, and the need for parking spaces. Authorities often encourage carpooling, especially during periods of high pollution or high fuel prices. Car sharing is a good way to use up the full seating capacity of a car, which would otherwise remain unused if it were just the driver using the car.
  In 2009, carpooling represented 43.5% of all trips in the United States and 10% of commute trips. The majority of carpool commutes are "fam-pools" with family members.
  Carpool commuting is more popular for people who work in places with more jobs nearby, and who live in places with higher residential densities.
context_section_description: Carpooling first became prominent in the United States as a rationing tactic during World War II. Ridesharing began during World War II through “car clubs” or “car-sharing clubs”. The US Office of Civilian Defense asked neighborhood councils to encourage four workers to share a ride in one car to conserve rubber for the war effort. It also created a ride sharing program called the Car Sharing Club Exchange and Self-Dispatching System. Carpooling returned in the mid-1970s due to the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis. At that time the first employee vanpools were organized at Chrysler and 3M.
  Carpooling declined precipitously between the 1970s and the 2000s, peaking in the US in 1970 with a commute mode share of 20.4%. By 2011 it was down to 9.7%. In large part this has been attributed to the dramatic fall in gas prices (45%) during the 1980s. In the 1990s it was popular among college students, where campuses have limited parking space. Together with Prof. James Davidson from Harvard, Dace Campbell, a Washington computer scientist, and several others, began to investigate the feasibility of further development although the comprehensive technologies were not commercially available yet at the time. Their work is considered by many to be a forerunner of carpooling & ridesharing systems using technology developed by Garrett Camp, Travis Kalanick, Oscar Salazar and Conrad Whelan at Uber.
  The character of carpool travel has been shifting from "Dagwood Bumstead" variety, in which each rider is picked up in sequence, to a "park and ride" variety, where all the travelers meet at a common location. Recently, however, the Internet has facilitated growth for carpooling and the commute share mode has grown to 10.7% in 2005. In 2007 with the advent of smart phones and GPS, which became commercially available, John Zimmer and Logan Green, from Cornell University and University of California, Santa Barbara respectively, rediscovered and created carpooling system called Zimride, a precursor to Lyft. The popularity of the Internet and smart phones has greatly helped carpooling to expand, enabling people to offer and find rides thanks to easy-to-use and reliable online transport marketplaces. These websites are commonly used for one-off long-distance journeys with high fuel costs.
  In Europe, long-distance car-pooling has become increasingly popular over the past years, thanks to BlaBlaCar. According to its website, as of 2020, Blablacar counted more than 80 million users, across Europe and beyond.
  As of March 2020, Uber and Lyft have suspended carpooling services in the U.S. and Canada in efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic via social distancing.
caption: A poster used to promote carpooling in the U.S. as a way to ration gasoline during World War II
exif: {}