Cracking the carpool conundrum with new collaboration software
March 25, 2010, 8:50am PDT | Length: 00:02:22
Getting employees to rideshare has always been a difficult challenge for businesses. But Paul McGrath, CEO of Ridespring may have an answer. He’s developed web-based software that organizes carpooling into a one-stop destination, so users can share their daily commute information across the organization more easily. The software also has incentives built-in, so the more employees carpool the more likely they are to be rewarded for ridesharing.
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>> Getting employees to carpool has always been considered one of the holy grails for businesses. Ride sharing encourages employee comradery and cuts down on carbon emissions, but having an organized plan is a challenge for many companies.
>> It's a set up database for carpools internally can be very difficult and often if they do set one up the participation is very low.
>> Paul McGrath is the CEO of RideSring, a technology company that's built software to organize ride sharing into a one stop destination.
>> We've enabled people to share their commuting information across the organization very easily.
>> One of RideSpring's successes is at business software SAP. SAP started using RideSpring in 2008, and now 30% of the employees in the Silicon Valley office have signed up. Larry Morgan oversees the program at the company.
>> It saves them time, it saves them fuel, it saves them bridge tolls, they get to ride in the carpool lanes, so there's a quality of work life balance that's also part of the program.
>> Here's how the software works. Say you want to find a ride. Select your worksite and your home destination and do a search. A list of drivers appears telling you when they plan to arrive and leave from work. If it matches your schedule, sign up. If instead you decide to offer a ride, you can fill out a form entering data and describing when you're available to help out. The software also has incentives built in so the more employees carpool the more likely they are to be rewarded for ride sharing.
>> They can win prizes every single month, and they can also see what they're saving, it's simply gas savings and carbon savings.
>> The rewards are also available to employees who may decide to walk, bike, or use public transit to get to SAP.
>> We've transformed the daily commute into a fun, competitive game between co-workers and that really drives interest and participation.
>> RideSpring, making it easier to carpool to work, all the while reducing your carbon footprint during the commute hours. For ZDNET I'm Sumi Das.
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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
