Southern Cross University student Justine Taylor spends an hour and a half per day commuting to and from university. But the South Golden Beach resident has now registered on the Northern Rivers Carpool website and hopes to share the driving and save money by car pooling.

The Northern Rivers Carpool is a new free online service which connects people who want to car share to work or study. In the pilot stage until next February, the service will be be trialled with a limited number of organisations before being made available to the whole community. At the moment staff and students of the six Northern Rivers councils, Southern Cross University, North Coast TAFE and the North Coast Area Health Service can join the car pool.

Northern Rivers Carpool co-ordinator Gillian Edwards said that sharing lifts is a good way to make new friends as well as reduce driving stress.

“It’s crazy – everyone travels alone in their cars, following each other to the same place,” she said. “By car pooling, we can reduce the number of cars on the roads, car emissions and petrol consumed.”

Helen Hill makes a 45-minute journey each day from Lillian Rock to the university. By car pooling she hopes to save money and meet new people.

“I’ve tried car pooling before and it fell apart because people’s availability changed,” Ms Hill said. For her, the new online service offers more flexibility in quickly and easily finding other people travelling in the same direction to work.

“People don’t have to live right next to each other to car pool,” Ms Edwards said. “They can even drive their cars to the house of the person they are car pooling with, and leave the car there while travelling to work with the other person.”

The website also features a travel fuel cost calculator. Ms Edwards said that a 90km return trip between Byron and Lismore in a small four-cylinder car costs about $10 for fuel.

“If you were to car pool two days a week you could save $700 to $1000 per year,” she said.

Organisers invite people to test drive the service before registering.
For more information visit www.nrcarpool.org.