Parents with children in two more independent schools can also sign up for a carpooling service specifically designed for them, as the ‘Bum a lift’ app creators launched a new service.
‘Bum a lift – Schools’ was made available to parents of children attending St Martin’s College in September.
Yesterday it was also made available to two more schools, San Anton and San Andrea.
Just hours after parents from the two schools were informed of the service yesterday, over 50 from each school had already signed up.
“Parents are very willing. Since launching earlier today, parents haven’t stopped registering,” programmer Shaun Grech, who came up with the ‘Bum a lift’ initiative with Kevin Farrugia, said.
The ‘Bum a lift’ website, launched in 2013, was the first carpooling platform to launch in Malta. Today, there are more than 600 active users, with over 70 of them being parents who carpool for trips to school.
Parents interested in registering for the scheme can visit the website https://schools.bumalift.com/schools and input a specific code for each school.
The new system groups parents from the same school, matching those in the same or nearby locality.
Mr Grech said they were working on getting more schools on board and were already in talks with several independent schools.
“This year we also hope to make the service available to those parents with children in church schools and after that we would start looking at state schools.”
Mr Grech said parents with children at schools not yet on the app could still register their interest as this will help the creators identify areas of interest.
“By signing up, parents would help us to gather the data to use when we approach the schools’ administration,” he said.
Schools have been very helpful in promoting the initiative, Mr Grech said, and while data on the effectiveness of the scheme was still being collected, initial feedback had been very positive.
“We are working tirelessly to promote carpooling in Malta.
“We still have a long way to go but such initiatives help in trying to change people’s mentality about carpooling.”
The ‘Bum a lift’ initiative is also supported by Transport Malta.