Car pooling - encouraging higher vehicle occupancy

Summary

The first car pooling initiative will be implemented in Perugia within the wider scenario laid out in the city’s Urban Mobility Plan. The service will be managed by a web portal to meet the needs of different commuters that travel around the city.

Implementing sustainable mobility

To encourage and reward participants in the carpooling three pilot sites were selected, close to which some parking for cars carrying fleets of commuters will be reserved.  A private company will be involved in the implementation of the system. The company studied a prototype gate able to check the number of persons inside the vehicle that accesses the reserved parking area. This automatic system, through a proxy lector, controls the effective presence of three or more persons in the car, if they have the personal smart card, obtained by the subscription to the carpooling website.

The target groups, to which the measure is directed, are composed by the student population and employees of the University of Perugia, whose potential of membership to the initiative has been investigated through an online survey. The phases of analysis and implementation of the measure will be carried out in collaboration with the Mobility Manager of the University and staff.

Progress

After a research and analysis phase, the Municipality of Perugia in collaboration with the Perugia University will provide the new service of carpooling.
The activities already implemented are:

• An analysis of data from the survey carried out on the Perugia University employees and students;
• The architecture of the web program to compare the supply and demand of journey of the users that want to share their own cars;
• The plan to encourage and promote car pooling.

Outcomes

Perugia expects that the measure will:

• Encourage car users to share their vehicles, thus increasing vehicle occupancy and reducing traffic;
• Provide input to Municipality’s policy to control car occupancy levels within the city;
• Reduce consumption and emissions when introduced on a wider city basis.
• Increase user satisfaction and assessment of take-up among different population segments.