Why I started RideApp?
Recently, I have started working on RideApp. RideApp is a simple carpooling app which aims to make our daily office commute easy, affordable and most importantly good on the environment.
I visited the US in February 2014 and, this being my first visit, I was taken aback by the stark difference between the traffic conditions in the US and India. Definitely better roads, better traffic management. It aches to see the condition of the traffic that we have to face everyday here in India. It’s not that there are less vehicles in the US but the roads are definitely broader, people follow traffic rules religiously. Driving was definitely a pleasure. The next question was what can we, the educated class, do to better our city’s streets, even by a small measure.
We can always crib about our government not building better roads or broadening them. According to some data road length in India increases by some 250% in the past 60 years. The problem is the number of vehicles increase by 3700% in the same time. Here is the problem. The solution? Clear enough, reduce the number of vehicles on road.
One way to do this is to impose heavy road and vehicle tax as in countries like the United Kingdom. But nobody wants that. But we can do our bit to try and reduce the number of vehicles daily on road.
Now, if you think about it traffic is worst in the morning and in the evening when people go to work and are returning back home from work. This is the perfect place where we can help reduce the traffic. How? Simple. Start carpooling with your colleagues, friends or neighbours who are going in the same direction. Instead of one person in one car, we can comfortably travel 4 people in one car. That’s a whopping 75% reduction in the number of vehicles!
We all wish to see roads not traffic-jammed all the time. This is our chance to work actively in this direction. A small initiative by each of us can compound and bring a much bigger change.
There are some other services and apps which are working on a similar problem, which is, to enable people to carpool with each other. I think all of us have taken on a tough but noble initiative.
Visit the RideApp website to download the Android and iPhone app. Currently, we are only in Pune. Want to know when we are in your city? Drop me an email at sid@rideapp.in and we’ll let you know :)
By - Sid Saha