Europe’s largest automobile club, ADAC, and Europe’s largest ride sharing network, carpooling.com, have reached an agreement to continue their cooperation promoting after two years successfully promoting carpooling as a convenient and sustainable way to travel.
Germany based ADAC, which has over 17.5 million members across Europe, offers road side assistance, insurance and advice to its members. In 2009, ADAC launched its a two-year project carpooling club (Mitfahrclub) for its members to use as a means of reducing their ever-increasing mobility costs.
"It has enabled us to reach new users in the 28-36 age group," says Siegfried Gehlert, Director of ADAC.
Through the joint http://mitfahrclub.adac.de/ and the German carpooling.com platform (mitfahrgelegenheit.de), the users can identify themselves as an ADAC member.
"The journey with an ADAC member is considered safer because people will be helped quickly in the event of a breakdown thanks to ADAC roadside assistance," said Michael Reinicke, Managing Director of carpooling.com GmbH.
The benefits of ride sharing- or carpooling as it is also known-are quite clear: "Traffic and parking capacity in big cities are under huge amounts of pressure," said Gehlert. "Fewer cars generate less noise and fewer traffic jams. Buses and trains don’t run everywhere. Carpools can help fill these gaps and also lead to lower charges for road construction and restoration," says Siegfried Gehlert.
The concept is very simple; by sharing a ride, people save gas and money and reduce their carbon emissions. The more people carpool, the more rides and the more of a chance you will find the trip you want.
Carpooling.com is the largest ride sharing network in Europe with 3.4 million registered users. Available in 7 languages and 9 local platforms (including: Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland and Greece), http://www.carpooling.com is used by more than 2 million people every month. Thanks to carpooling.com, 24 million carpools have been formed; 630,000 tons of C02 and €750 million have been saved by users; not counting thousands of friendships created (including more than 10 marriages!).
