Rideshare arrives at uOttawa

We've seen that post somewhere... "Headed to Toronto this weekend, I have a few extra seats". Sometimes people are doing this because they don't like o make ling drives alone, or because they are looking for someone to split gas money with. Either way, this is ridesharing and it is an important part of the sharing economy.

Ridesharing isn't a new concept. The idea is fairly simple, a car is headed somewhere and there some empty seats... Ridesharing is the basically an option to fill those seats up. Think of it like carpooling but to another city.

So if you have a car, you can offer a ride to people headed to the same place as you (and charge a small fee for the ride). Or if you want to go somewhere but don't have a ride, you can ask someone who is headed to the same place to drive you (and compensate them for their troubles).

The internet is awash in "ride boards", places where you can see where people are headed or where they need a ride to. Kijiji is probably one of the most popular sites for rideshares. You can even find a bunch on the uOttawa Rideshare Facebook group.



But now the University of Ottawa's Carpool Portal is now hosting ride matching for people who want to head out of town. So now you can search for rides from and offer rides to people on campus. This can be a pretty appealing option since everyone how signs up for the uOttawa program is identified as part of the uOttawa community.

Ridesharing makes sense for a tonne of reasons. First, it is cheap. Although there is no fixed cost, the passenger and the driver usually work something out privately, and often for a lot less than what you would pay to take the bus.

This is also a great option for the driver who gets to make a bit of cash for essentially going to where they were going to go anyways.

Second, using rideshare is a great option for the environment. Instead of mostly empty cars zooming from city to city, those cars get filled up with people. This reduces the amount of vehicles needed on the road. Fewer cars means fewer emissions and less traffic.

Take a look for yourself on the uOttawa carpooling webpage. Maybe when Reading Week, or the winter holidays roll around, you might be able to score a ride back home.

~ jonathan rausseo - campus sustainability manager