Car pooling to be given another go

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Energy conservationists have won a $300,000 grant to revive car-pooling in Auckland, using the power of the internet.

Infrastructure Auckland is looking for social gains from a proposal by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority to develop a car-pooling website, as well as environment and economic benefits.

In approving the grant, the funding agency rated "quality of travelling experiences" and "community identity and belonging" as the greatest likely gains from matching partners for the daily struggle along the region's roads.

Its grant will pay for the conservation body, with support from the Auckland Regional Authority, to develop software over the next financial year for a website, the potential of which has attracted interest from the car pool promoters elsewhere.

The conservation authority's own website has links to schemes based at universities and polytechnics in Christchurch, Dunedin and Gisborne, but their promoters are struggling to keep the software up to date.

New software to be developed by the authority will be offered to the others once the Auckland project is running. It will enable drivers and passengers to be matched more closely.

Its existing website offers car-poolers the carrot of "half-price" petrol and gives hints on how they should keep their "marriages of convenience" on track.

It tells people their insurance cover will not be affected by car-pooling and they should agree in advance about how driving, fuel and parking costs will be shared.

Incentives in the South Island schemes include offers of priority parking.

Car pooling was pioneered in Auckland during the 1970s oil-price shocks when the Government waived tolls on the harbour bridge for participating commuters from the North Shore. The Auckland City Council also offered free parking.

Despite attracting hundreds of travel companions at its height, the scheme fizzled out as oil prices eased and smaller Japanese cars took to the roads.

Regional council sustainable transport manager Anna Percy wants to make new schemes more durable by working with institutions and companies to promote car-pooling among their staff.

She said that although the website would be a vast improvement over a card-filing system used in the 1970s, it would be just one tool to encourage greater efficiency alongside corporate or community travel plans.

Working with companies and other organisations would also ensure greater security for participants, although Infrastructure Auckland accepted there was no evidence that personal safety was a serious issue with existing pooling programmes.

Lincoln University transport studies professor Chris Kissling said that "nothing untoward" had happened in a scheme he helped to launch in 1997, apart from some motorists borrowing car-pooling vouchers to gatecrash parking priority areas.

Ms Percy hoped some Auckland institutions might be able to offer priority parking to car-poolers, but said it was not for the regional council to prescribe incentives such as allowing high-occupancy vehicles to use bus lanes.

She acknowledged that is was an uphill battle to try to boost Auckland's average vehicle occupancy rate of just 1.2 people, and that car-pooling alone would make little difference to the region's congestion.

Infrastructure Auckland awarded its grant despite a modest prediction that only about 1000 people, or less than 0.1 per cent of the region's population, would end up car-pooling by 2021.

But a study commissioned by North Shore City Council last year found that more than 1000 commuters were car-pooling down just one priority lane for high-occupancy vehicles, in Onewa Rd.

Planners are about to ask residents for their views on forming similar lanes on three other busy routes, Constellation Drive, Forrest Hill Rd and Shakespeare Rd.

However, the Auckland City Council prefers to keep its bus lanes the preserve of buses, bicycles and motorbikes for now.

Car pool etiquette

* When car pooling it is important to consider:

* Which radio station everyone can agree to listen to.

* What are acceptable topics of conversation.

* Whether is it rude to use your mobile phone, read or do paperwork.

* Whether you can ask the driver to make a quick detour for your morning paper or other errands (the answer is no).