Tempers flare and car horns blare as drivers sitting on sizzling car seats huff and puff under the scorching sun, the dense traffic jam in front of them thickening by the minute.
Over the past few years, Malta has seen the introduction of park-and-ride sites, a “reformed” public transport system and several parking initiatives but the heavy traffic congestion persists and some keep insisting that the best solution is carpooling.
Although this system is quite common abroad and inter-national online sites even cater for different European countries, Maltese drivers find it easier to cruise in their own car.
However, two environmentally-conscious young people, Anna Maria Anastasi and Jean Marc Galea, decided to give it a go and created an online group to facilitate carpooling.
This Facebook group Trid Lift? attracted more than 330 people overnight and became an instant hit with social network users.
Group members include both car owners and passengers. People could also share fuel costs and even car insurance if carpooling were to take place over a stretch of time. Sharing car journeys with people who have a common departure and destination point reduces each person’s travel cost and driving stress. Carpooling also reduces carbon emissions, traffic congestion and parking issue headaches.
“We started this group as we think this is really needed in Malta because of traffic, fumes and the cost of living,” Mr Galea said, adding that, during rush hours, most cars carry just one person: the driver. “You cannot help but think that if each car had more people there probably wouldn’t be any traffic at all.”
The group creators had in the past sought funding for some software or online space that could make carpooling easier but were not successful in securing support from the authorities. Therefore, they resorted to Facebook. The impressive response quickly showed that this incentive was appreciated and people were interested in carpooling. Ms Anastasi’s and Mr Galea’s major concern remained that it might be difficult to search for carpoolers on Facebook and they will be launching a carpooling website within a fortnight.
The stand-alone website, www.tridlift.com, will be fully integrated with Facebook to maintain the “community feel” and people would still be able to see profiles before accepting to join prospective carpoolers.
Google maps will also be integrated within this portal and carpoolers will be able to draw out routes to be displayed with an estimate of fuel costs.
Although Mr Galea had not tried carpooling in this manner before, he insisted that bringing people together at a low cost had already proved successful with free accommodation systems like couchsurfing. Couchsurfing participants move from one house to another, sleeping in any available spare space, be it on the floor or on a couch.
“This is something that I have tried and in a funny way consider to be similar. I have both sought accommodation at other people’s houses and hosted people myself, and I think it is amazing. Apart from saving money you are also meeting different people.
“I think that the fun thing about carpooling is meeting new people and having com-pany while driving,” Mr Galea added.