Carpooling

What is carpooling?
What are the benefits of a carpool program?
How ATP helps you
How can I encourage residents to participate?

What is carpooling?

Carpooling is an arrangement by a group of commuters to drive together in the same car to their place (or places) of business. Carpools usually consist of individuals who live near each other, are employees of the same company (or are employees of different companies located only a short distance apart) and have the same work hours.

Carpooling reduces the number of cars on the road and allows your residents to use the faster HOV lanes on I-66, I-95, and I-395.

What are the benefits of a carpool program?

Sharing the ride to and from work can save your residents up to $1,500 a year by lowering their gasoline bills, insurance costs, car maintenance needs and parking costs. Carpoolers can take advantage of special High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes to reach their destinations faster, and they can choose to read, sleep or chat, when they're not behind the wheel. The environment benefits too. Last year, area carpools and vanpools prevented over 62 tons of harmful emissions from entering the Earth's atmosphere and saved over one million gallons of gasoline.

Advantages of carpooling:

• Facilitates use of HOV lanes for faster travel.
• Residents have less stress traveling to and from work.
• Financial savings for residents sharing commuting costs.
• Carpoolers show improved productivity at work.

How ATP helps you:

• ATP provides free computerized carpool matching through the Commuter Connections Ridematching service.
• ATP recommends the best ridesharing programs and incentives for your community.
• ATP provides brochures and information about carpooling.

How can I encourage residents to participate?

While your residents share a common living location they probably do not know which neighbors work on their block or perhaps even in their building!  Making it easy for residents to connect and ride to work together can drastically improve their quality of life and their satisfaction with their location.  There are numerous ways you can get the word out and encourage your residents to participate in a carpooling program, including:

• Provide preferential parking (closer to the building) or reserved parking for carpoolers.
• Host a carpool formation party or event to help residents form or join carpools.
• Provide information to residents about the Commuter Connections' Ridematching service and the Guaranteed Ride Home program. Arlington Transportation Partners has brochures and posters available.
• Provide a commuting incentive program for those who carpool, bike, or walk to work.

Carpooling can also be encouraged through the computerized matching of riders with the same needs.  Commuter Connections has been helping commuters find carpools for over 20 years, making this an easy program for your community to offer. The Commuter Assistance Program (CAP), through the Commuter Connections Ridematching Service, can match individual residents interested in carpooling at no cost to you or your residents, or help set up a ridematching program at your complex.