Carpooling | Regulations alone may not make car owners share their ride

India is finally taking steps to make carpooling a more widespread reality. A draft of the proposed guidelines is on its way for public consultation.

According to a report by The Economic Times, India will legalise carpooling with some riders. It has to be a no-profit-no-loss service, number of riders are to be capped at four, and both riders and the driver will have to go through a mandatory KYC process.

Let’s look at some numbers on the car industry first.

In January 2019, around 1.6 million new cars were registered in India. That’s more than 50,000 new private vehicles registered every day. The number was even higher during the year before. To add to that, a significant portion of these cars are sold in metros where congestion is already a menace.

Ideally, carpooling -- a group of people who travel together, especially to work or school, usually in a different or same member’s private car every day -- would reduce the number of private vehicles on the road resulting in less congestion, especially during peak hours. Lesser cars on the road obviously means less pollution.

Even if the necessary regulatory intervention takes place and they are enforced it may still not be sufficient.

The government wants carpooling to be on a no-profit and no-loss basis. Now, how will cost-sharing be determined? There’s the cost of fuel, a car’s wear-and-tear and the cost of insurance. And, then there’s also a cost to the driver’s time and efforts on the road. There is no clarity yet on how this will be determined.

Besides, there is a need to provide incentives to people who opt for carpooling – on road and off the road. For instance, there could be a dedicated lane for carpoolers, incentives in the form of discounts on toll payments and special provisions for parking or even free parking. These could gently nudge people to opt for carpooling in more numbers.

But there's another aspect that should not be underestimated. In India, a car is not just a product that provides a convenient mode of transport. It remains an aspiration and owning a car is seen as a sign of moving up in life.  In a country where a car is seen as a status symbol, and the most valuable purchase after a house, the concept of carpooling can be successful when people are given adequate incentives. While there is one view that cars are no longer an aspiration for the young generation, it's too soon to draw that conclusion.

In India, the concept of driving in one's lane is virtually non-existent with drivers. If a group of people are opting for carpooling, that’s not only because they want to save cost of transport, but they should also get the option to travel faster without being stuck in traffic. Without dedicated lanes for carpoolers, that would not be possible. In metros, that seems impractical to expect.

There’s another thing that may be an obstacle to carpooling at scale. The concept of working 9-5 is  another concept that is alien in many companies. Even people working in the same office may not be able to travel back at the same time and for them carpooling would not be a viable option.

In developed countries, authorities keep tabs on rising congestion, travel time, pollution, wastage of fuel, among other things. How much of that will be done in India and given importance is anyone’s guess.

Some countries, like the US, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, UK, South Africa, Australia, France and Germany, among others permit peer-to-peer carpooling. The US has in 2012, formally set standards for “carpools, and real-time ridesharing projects". In India, the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, does not specifically restrict car-pooling, rather it remains a grey area.

A December 2016 report of the Committee on Taxi Policy Guidelines to Promote Urban Mobility acknowledged the need for a national-level policy intervention to promote shared mobility via private vehicle ownership to reduce congestion and pollution in urban agglomerations. A NITI Aayog report, in September 2018, also supported the concept of carpooling. There are informal car pooling networks that already exist, with some companies promoting it while there are a few apps that support such networks too. How these operate when the new guidelines come into force remains to be seen.

Truth is, asset utilisation of privately owned vehicles is very low. Some studies suggest it is as low as 5 percent for small cars with up to five seats. And, as the NITI Aayog report suggested, personal car ownership in India is as low as 32 per 1,000 while the same is 797 in the US. Mobility requirement in India is still served with public transport modes like buses, metros and trains.

There is scope for carpooling to become a huge success in India . But, there has to be a change in thinking, supported by policy framework coupled with incentives for people opting for carpooling. Without that, carpooling is unlikely to succeed in India.