{"id":61150,"date":"2015-03-12T08:03:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T03:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=61150"},"modified":"2016-07-29T09:52:59","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T13:52:59","slug":"blancride","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/blancride","title":{"rendered":"Blancride Aims to Ease Traffic Congestion One Carpool at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no secret that politicians are struggling to reconcile transportation needs and the increasing population in Toronto; the Toronto Region Board of Trade reports that gridlock costs the city $6 billion in lost productivity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet it seems that Canadians are still reluctant to ditch their cars, since 83 per cent of Canadians still reportedly drive alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hamid Akbari and Iman Hajizadeh hope to alleviate some of that congestion and help both car-lovers and commuters. They are the co-founders of Blancride<\/a>, a mobile application-based carpooling service that connects carpoolers and drivers in the area with common destinations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s for people who care about gridlock. It\u2019s for people who care about reducing their carbon footprint,\u201d Akbari says. \u201cEspecially with the Pan AM games coming through, our roads and cities are going to be packed!\u201d<\/p>\n

Akbari, who works at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, would often get together with Hajizadeh, and the two friends would discuss their irritation with gridlock and environmental impact of so many cars on the road.<\/p>\n

In 2012, their discussions \u201cEventually got to the point where we asked, why don\u2019t we do this and just see where it goes?\u201d Hajizadeh says. And the idea for Blancride was born.<\/p>\n

With help from the university and the Spark Centre, an innovation hub serving startups in the Durham Region, they eventually opened an office at the Centre and enjoyed a limited launch of the app available to UOIT\u2019s 12,000 students. Within eight weeks, they had 1,200 of these students using the app. With another office recently opened in Toronto, they are hoping for Blancride to gain traction in a city that continues to struggle with gridlock problems.<\/p>\n

Blancride<\/a> works by allowing people to sign up as passengers or drivers, though when you first sign up, you are automatically signed up as a passenger. Passengers can set whatever destination they\u2019d like to go to, including the desired time and their time flexibility, and the app will find a \u201cmatch\u201d based on other drivers in the area. And the awkwardness of having to ask for money is removed \u2013 the app automatically charges the cost of the ride to the passenger\u2019s credit card, based on mileage and the average cost of a ride per kilometre.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not really about profit-making for the driver, it\u2019s about splitting the cost so both will benefit.\u201d Akbari says. For those who hate waiting outside during the cold winters, the app tracks exactly where the driver is and how many minutes until they get to you.<\/p>\n

Signing up as a driver requires a more stringent screening process \u2013 Blancride verifies your email and phone number and ensures that you have a valid driver\u2019s license and insurance. Both passengers and drivers are subject to a \u2018rating\u2019 system at the end of the ride so that the community knows whom they should trust to get them to where they want to go.<\/p>\n

They admit that one of the biggest challenges in getting Blancride to become more mainstream is the fact that people have to commit to some change in behavior. If you have a car, \u201cYou get up and you drive to work,\u201d says Hajizadeh. \u201cBut with carpooling, you have to somewhat think in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as people become more conscious of the environment and commuters become increasingly frustrated with longer commuting times, they are optimistic that people will eventually adopt their \u201cconscious commuting\u201d app.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s conscious from an environmental perspective. The majority of greenhouse gases in Canada come from transportation, and these are issues we can solve,\u201d Hajizadeh says. \u201cIt\u2019s also conscious from an economic perspective. Each car that we operate on a daily basis costs almost $30 a day. If you switch to carpooling, you can save some of that money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no secret that politicians are struggling to reconcile transportation needs and the increasing population in Toronto; the Toronto Region Board of Trade reports that gridlock costs the city $6 billion in lost productivity. Yet it seems that Canadians are still reluctant to ditch their cars, since 83 per cent of Canadians still reportedly drive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69989,"featured_media":70637,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"magazine-region":[],"magazine-series":[],"magazine-topic":[],"class_list":["post-61150","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-News"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/61150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/69989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/61150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/70637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61150"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=61150"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=61150"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=61150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}