Stranger Danger - a Barrier to Carpooling Programs?

Hi Bernhard

Although not specifically answering your question, an assessment by the Victorian Department of Infrastructure of other carpooling programs worldwide found that those which delivered passengers to a common destination provided the greatest rates of adoption of carpooling practices. By way of example, the Commuter Connections program run by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments in the United States, includes a carpooling system with coverage for the entire city of Washington D.C. In it, the employer-based facilities within the broader program have been found to experience significantly higher rates of utilisation. This insight suggests that for the significant increase in complexity and cost that accompanies a broad-based carpooling scheme beyond single employers or employer clusters, there is only a slight improvement in outcomes.

In addition to this, there was a study conducted on a CBD-wide carpooling program which produced some interesting results, not least of which was the potential for carpooling to 'cannibalise' public transport patronage (Moderator: the link has been removed and the pdf has been added online to this post).

As an observation from the body of work above, the organisational or geographical correlation between commuters where higher take-up rates are found might be partially explained by a (perceived?) reduction in the 'stranger danger' phenomenon you allude to.

On a separate note, some useful carpooling source mat's are available at:

http://www.travelsmart.vic.gov.au/web4/tsmart.nsf

Finally, there was some negative news coverage on carpooling locally yesterday that might be a useful signpost regarding other issues that you may encounter:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/car-pool-research-sinks-brumby-scheme-claims-20090414-a695.html

You should note that some of the ref's quoted have been used out of context, presumably in support of an ongoing argument in favour of public transport investment.

Hope this helps

Kristian Handberg
Dept of Sustainability and Environment
Australia

Here in Newcastle (UK), we have a car-pooling system which contains both private employer schemes and a 'public' option. On the Public option, without wanting to sound stereotypical, we wondered whether there might be a large majority of male users over female users, due to concerns over 'stranger danger'. However upon analysis we have found that, although there is a small majority, the figures are only 55% M - 45% F so I don't think there is any clear evidence (from our figures anyway) that the 'stranger danger' argument applies.

Stephen Psallidas
Nexus
Australia
www.gosmarter.co.uk