Catch a Ride With Pickup Pal

The minds behind PickupPal.com have thought of a way to bring market forces to bear on carpooling. The website matches drivers with those who need to snag a ride, and even lets the drivers bid on their passengers.

For example, say you’re making the trip from Chicago to Indianapolis. You would log on to Pickup Pal as a passenger and check out the people going to your destination. When you find a price that seems suitable — not to mention a driver you think you can spend two hours in a car with, based on his or her limited profile — you make your bid. Maybe the driver agrees to that price, or maybe you lose the bid and have to go with another driver on his way to Colts country for $20 more. PickupPal then makes a 7% commission when it matches passengers and drivers.

PickupPal has marketed this idea mostly from a financial perspective, emphasizing the entrepreneurial benefits of making money while driving somewhere you need to go anyway. Of course, carpooling also has a healthy environmental benefit that need not be overlooked. The site advertises this with a small green footprint at the bottom (reducing one’s carbon footprint – get it?), but stresses the economic angle a bit more because they “don’t want to scare away the masses.”

We’re pretty sure the “masses” are OK with lowering pollution while making money, but thanks to PickupPal for sugar-coating it for us.

PickupPal Makes Carpooling an Online, Financial Thing (Autoblog Green)