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媒体报导企业方案
| 媒体报导Carpooling starts to catch on as transport costs rise - My Paper，新加坡 (2008年1月15日)PIQUED by a car advertisement he saw on television, sales manager Mr Lawrence Chua, 33, logged onto a classifieds website, and ended up being convinced to offer his car up for a carpool service instead. Mr Chua said: "It's a good idea and will help both passengers and drivers save money." His BMW 320 guzzles up to $800 of petrol monthly. Passengers willing to hitch a ride to work in the comfort of Mr Chua's car each morning can do so for $8 per trip. He lives in Sembawang and works in Bukit Merah, and can pick up and drop off passengers anywhere in between. With the sharp increase in petrol prices and taxi fares recently, some people, like Mr Chua are turning to websites and the online social networking site Facebook in hopes of reviving the carpool culture here. Carpooling used to be popular in the 1970s, when cars entering the Central Business District would be charged a levy if they were not seated to maximum capacity. Today, New Zealand-based Mr Brian Hsu, a software engineer who founded global carpool network Carpoolking.com in May last year, estimates that at least 30 of his 500 registered users are Singaporeans. Mr Hsu said: "An online database is more efficient than having to visit different physical noticeboards to find a ride and slightly safer than picking someone from the street." One of the website's users, army regular Mr Jack Chew, 26, chanced upon it while surfing the Internet last month. He has since registered himself on three more such websites and also added Carpool, an online application to his profile on Facebook. Through the Facebook application, he links up with people in his social network who are looking for a ride. "If I were abroad, I'd be more concerned but Singapore is quite safe," said Mr Chew, who drives solo between his Bedok home to his workplace in Yishun every day. He will charge each passenger about $5 per ride on his Kia Picanto. Still, the rate that connections are being made is slow. IT executive Ms Tan Hwee Leng, 37, has been seeking a ride between Tiong Bahru and Kranji in the morning for the past three months to no avail. Ms Tan said: "It used to be quite popular last time. Maybe it's just that not many people know about the new online schemes." |