Fuel Economy Tip – Start a Ride Share Program at Work

Today’s tip will help you save a lot of gas and may just help you during your next annual review at work.

Start a ride share or carpool program at your work..

I think this is one of the easiest, yet least utilized ways for people to save gas, especially considering there really isn’t much work involved in setting it up.

First off, why should you spend your personal time setting up a carpool program for your work?  Aside from the obvious reason of saving gas, here are a couple of benefits to taking part in a ride share program:

1. You can ride in HOV lanes on the highway, which will more than likely reduce your commuting time.
2. Assuming you’re on a schedule that rotates drivers, you’ll be able to kick back, relax and let someone else do the driving (for the most part).
3. Since you’ll be driving your car less, you’ll reduce the wear and tear on your vehicle and extend its life.
4. You get some “bonding time” with your co-workers.

Now that you know why you should start a ride share program, how do you go about actually getting it all together?  Here are some simple and easy ways you can go about getting your co-workers to participate:

1. Contact your HR department and let them know you are interested in starting a carpool program at work.
2. Leave a note in the lunchroom or on the company bulletin board letting people know about the potential program and to contact you if they are interested.
3. Write an article for the company newsletter stating your interest in creating a ride share program, why people should participate and to contact you if they are interested or have question.

Obviously, in order for the carpool program to be successful, you’re going to need to have enough people participating (especially in the beginning) so I would recommend using all of the above if you are serious about starting the program.

Now that you’ve got a whole bunch of interested people, try and create groups of three to four people based on geographic proximity.  There’s no point in trying to carpool if you have to drive completely across town to pick someone up.

From there, get each group to work out some sort of driving schedule – e.g. each person in the group gets a certain week for each month.  Go with whatever works best.  From here, you should be set!

Finally, if you need any additional incentive for attempting to start a ride share program at work (aside from the fact it’s easy to do and has many benefits), here’s one final reason – it’ll make you look good in your employer’s eyes.

If you go through all the trouble of setting up this program on your own time, I think it could certainly be something that you bring up during your evaluations.  It shows you’re proactive and that you can start something of use from scratch.

Give it a try – I think you’ll be surprised by the response you’ll receive.