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Carpooling could save lives and reduce pollution

Europe matches Asian giants in air pollution deaths (deaths from ambient particulate matter & ozone pollution per million inhabitants*)

According to a recent OECD study, India is among the countries that face maximum numbers of deaths caused by air pollution. At about 565 deaths per million habitants, the number is certainly alarming in the country.

But as they say better late than never, today, people in the country are becoming aware of this threat. More and more citizens are taking or participating in initiatives that can help reduce the air pollution without having to compromise on the lifestyle we have become accustomed to.

One of the most effective solutions to reduce air pollution is carpooling. Today, there are many startups based on carpooling business model that are actively encouraging people, particularly daily office-goers, to share rides with their colleagues and other people going their way, so that we can minimise the problem of rising air pollution & traffic congestion with collective efforts.

Here in this post, we have covered 5 carpooling services that are striving to make a change in the country.

LetsPool

Launched a couple of months ago, this Delhi-based carpooling mobile app is packed with lots of wonderful features to make ride sharing experience more convenient & secure (prime reason to put it on the first place).

Also Read: 77 per cent of drivers carpool to save money: RYDE survey

Besides carpooling, LetsPool also offers bike-pooling service, a much-needed service in India’s present traffic condition. Offering its service in all major cities across India, LetsPool offers features like instant & recurrent scheduling, inter & intra-city rides, women-only pools, inbuilt chat feature, share rides with friends, or friends of friends, save routes, save co-traveller, profile verification, SOS features during an emergency, and much more.

Meru Cabs

Meru Cabs is Mumbai-based carpooling & cab service that provides its services in 25 cities across the country. Like LetsPool, Meru Cabs too has worked hard to develop an app that simplifies the overall carpooling experience. The feature that stands out in Meru is its inbuilt wallet to allow users make easy payments.

The startup also offers a cab service under the name Meru Genie Cabs, which is currently available in 15 cities. The notable thing about Genie Cabs is that these are good quality air-conditioned cabs at affordable prices, specially designed for working class of major cities in India.

Orahi

Orahi ride sharing app is specially developed for office-goers so that people can make the most out of the time they spend in commuting to office & back. The app’s carefully configured algorithm allows users to find their friends, colleagues, and neighbours going their way so that they can comfortably share rides with them.

Also Read: No internet? You can still book a bike taxi and even track your ride using Baxi

Orahi offers a flexible ride-sharing system. There is an option to choose your co-travellers, cashless payments, women-only pools. Orahi also manages a review & rating system that allows users to share their rides so that in future other riders can be more assured when pooling a ride.

BlaBlaCar

The Indian localised version of France-based BlaBlaCar was one of the first carpooling initiatives in the country. Launched in January 2015, BlaBlaCar.in grabbed the advantage of being the early bird in India, and today has a good penetration in the Indian market.

Being a major player in the industry, BlaBlaCar offers all the essential features that any other carpooling service offers. It offers a stringent verification process for security purposes, has provision for women only rides, and keeps organising events to promote carpooling across India.

PoolCircle

This Bangalore-based carpooling startup has many unique qualities. The most prominent ones are Refer a Friend program, and corporate carpooling solution.

Through its friend referral program, PoolCircle is optimally promoting carpooling & its own business simultaneously. Users also get benefit from the referral program for they are awarded a credit on each successful referral.

Also Read: As Ola and Uber fight over ‘nationality’, Meru Cabs zooms past with US$25M funding

The corporate carpooling solution is also a good feature, as it completely removes the hassle of everyday carpool scheduling for daily commuters.

Today, we all are aware of the growing problem of air pollution, as well as traffic congestion, the threat it imposes on the life of our community. As educated & responsible citizens, it is required of us to support these carpooling and other environment saving initiatives to create a better world for future generations.

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