Why carpooling is a sustainable solution for solving parking issues

Lack of sufficient parking infrastructure is a common and fast-growing issue for business parks, campuses and densely populated locations. But solving parking issues for commuters isn’t as easy as ‘drive less’. For businesses that are looking to incentivise a modal shift towards more sustainable and space-saving commute options, there needs to be better, easier, and cost-effective transport alternatives. 

Carpooling is a fantastic way of reducing parking congestion, fuel spend and carbon emissions, but can be notoriously difficult to manage on a wider scale - which is why Liftango developed an app-based smart carpool platform that can easily match rides for colleagues or students via a private network. It’s better for the planet, removes unnecessary traffic from the road and is a first step towards reducing Scope 3 emissions. 

Here we explore three different use cases across the globe, from universities to corporations and councils, that are using Liftango’s carpool platform to solve parking issues:

A Private Carpool Network For 6,000 Pharmaserv Staff

Pharmaserv enlisted the help of Liftango to resolve parking issues across their 67.4-hectare site in Germany. With around 6,000 staff employed at the park, Liftango has implemented its climate-positive carpooling platform to improve the commute experience, alleviate the pressure on parking infrastructure, and reduce reliance on single-occupancy vehicles. 

“We chose Liftango because of their ability to help us utilise our existing parking infrastructure more efficiently, reduce traffic density on-site and minimise the environmental impact of employees driving to work. Through Liftango’s platform, we are able to issue exclusive parking to people who carpool, thus saving time looking for parking. In addition, the operations data provided gives us valuable insights to monitor and manage a successful program,” said Elisa Fritsch, Site Services at Pharmaserv.

Pharmaserv provides site management, technical and logistical services at the Behringwerke site. The industrial park contains 200 buildings with a net floor space of 300,000 square metres. There are more than 80,000 square metres of parking space which will be used to expand production facilities. So instead of significantly increasing its investment in parking infrastructure, Pharmaserv has opted for a more sustainable choice.

Launched on the 1st of May 2022, Liftango’s carpooling platform operates on a private network exclusive to Pharmserv's Behringwerke industrial park. The on-demand shared transport company has established five carpooling locations across the site, allowing carpoolers to match with people from their organisation or others across the park. Users can also send private ride requests to friends or known colleagues, making it much easier to find a carpool.

A Community-Based UK B2B Carpool Initiative

My Journey, a sustainable travel initiative from Southampton City Council, Hampshire County Council and Portsmouth City Council, chose Liftango's leading car share solution to help the largest businesses in the region including Ordnance Survey, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, University of Southampton, Freightliner Group and Portsmouth Hospital University NHSTrust, to offer sustainable commuting for staff and students. 

This carpool project is community-based and aims to reduce parking constraints and ease congestion in the busy Solent region, as well as help to achieve their net zero goals, and has become one of the largest B2B car share networks in the UK.

By using Liftango’s dynamic car share technology, employees within the participating businesses are now able to travel more sustainably to and from their premises through this project funded by National Highways.

Liftango is providing one curated car share platform, designed to reduce single car usage and promote shared transportation. The platform provides the My Journey Workplaces network with personalised business dashboards to manage and report on usage, as well as measure carbon emissions. 

The platform includes a user-friendly app for employees that utilises a secure car share network to dynamically match car sharers. Approved users of the app will be able to match with others on the network that take similar routes to work, reducing commuting costs and carbon footprints for those individuals across the participating businesses. There are prizes and incentives to reward those who sign up and choose to make more sustainable commuting decisions.

Councillor Eammon Keogh, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport at Southampton City Council said: “We are excited to have launched the My Journey Car Share app with Liftango. It will contribute to reducing congestion and improving air quality across the Solent region by reducing single occupancy car journeys. Liftango has pulled out all the stops to get the easy-to-use app ready and we hope it will prove a popular choice for commuters locally.”

Incentivising Students To Carpool At The University of Monash

Monash is Australia’s largest university, set in a suburban zone. Many staff and students commute from outside towns, and given the lack of efficient Public Transport connections en route, driving is typically the choice way for most to get to campus. Yet, the university lacked enough parking spaces to meet the staggering demand. It had been reported that students were spending as long as 40 minutes looking for parking spaces once arriving at school.

In July 2019, the University of Monash rolled out a new carpooling program powered by Liftango. The aim of the program was to consolidate commuter trips, thereby reducing the number of needed parking spots. To incentivise uptake, Monash offered free parking for all who used the Liftango program. This was a welcome benefit, as the school’s parking permits typically cost over A$400—a big expense for those on a typical student budget.

Monash also enhanced its program with smart parking integrations, which has made it easy for the college’s carpoolers to receive their free parking perks. Working in conjunction with the PayByPhone App, all registered Liftango rides are automatically approved for no-cost parking.

These moves paid off greatly. Monash has obtained the greatest user uptake of all Liftango’s clients thus far, reaching the largest number of users six times faster than the closest client. Such performance is a direct result of the smart parking integration and discounted parking components of their custom carpooling program.

Better Parking And Sustainability Perks‍

Over and above the huge environmental impact of reducing thousands of cars travelling to and from sites, Liftango also offsets the vehicle emissions of every carpool trip made, through our partners Pachama. Many of our carpool projects that initially set out to purely solve parking issues have seen so many additional financial, social and sustainable benefits.