Why should I start a local Rural Carpool Hub?
And why me?

Since your region doesn't have a Rural Carpool Hub, your region requires a Champion -- someone who has some passion for their local community, and/or for the environment, and/or for the local economy. We aim for Hub setup to take a Hub Champion a couple of hours max, then have a period of outreach and promotion to get a critical mass of 50-100 members signed up, plan a Hub release and celebration, and then spend another hour or so per week, to keep the Hub humming. You may ask, "Why would I do this?"

For the “local-economy” enthusiast:
Creating a Carpool Hub can mean huge savings for the budgets of every member who uses it. Those dollars can strengthen the region, and encourage general local prosperity.

If one round trip ride a week of, say, 100 kilometers, is shared instead of driven, that's a hundred kilometers' costs saved -- around $25 staying in the pockets of the local economy, or $12.50 saved per person, that week. With 100 people sharing one ride per week, that totals $2500 per week saved by Carpool members in your community. Over a span of 50 weeks in a year (minus vacations), 50 x $2500 means $125,000 saved by your community in a year. Wow!

And that's only with *one* extra Rider, over a total 100 Trips per week. That number can easily double (with more Riders, or more Trips) to $250,000 per year kept in the billfolds of your rural community!

For the environmentalist:
Creating a Carpool Hub can mean dramatic CO2 savings, that you (as the Admin) can feel great about, and promote. We don't sequester CO2, we do better: we prevent its release. And we encourage feeling good about dramatically reducing pollutants!

With one shared ride per week, at around 200 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, that means 200(g) x 100(k) = 20,000 grams = 20 kg CO2 saved per week, per person. With 100 people sharing once a week (100 x 20 = 2000 kg saved per week), over 50 weeks in a year, that's 50 x 2000 = 100,000 kilograms of CO2 saved, just within your community! And that's only with *one* extra Rider per Trip.

For the community builder:
These rides can establish connections between people who ordinarily might not have had the chance to meet, much less chat for the time of a car ride.

A well-networked community is a strong community, and the value of knowing the name of someone three towns over is significant, if hard to quantify. Over 50 weeks a year, 100 one-hour round trips, is at least 5000 individual conversations between nearly-neighbors, per year. We expect new friends and connections to be made, and the larger community to be stronger because of it.

Those minimal numbers -- just 100 members, each sharing 1 trip per week -- still make a huge difference. But imagine having a thousand Members: $1.25 million saved by the community, 50,000 conversations, 1,000,000 kilograms of CO2 saved per year.

For the eco-entrepreneur:
Though not initially imagined as a design goal, a regional Hub could be its own small business, depending on the size of the Membership and the hustle of the local Admin. A grant-funded part-time position of Regional Carpool Manager, using the Rural Carpool.com platform as is, could be possible. Instead of annual sponsors, acquiring and cycling a set of monthly advertisements might be sufficient to support extra expansion efforts. Perhaps a crowdfunded part-time salary, funded directly from the appreciative Members, who can be encouraged to "tithe their personal savings from Carpool" toward supporting the human, as well as technical, infrastructure?

The upfront cost is nil, until there are 100 Members, when the sustaining annual subscription fee kicks in. At that point, there should be no problem with sponsorships.

In short, if you are someone who has a lot of connections in a rural region that could benefit from the Rural Carpool framework, someone who knows local groups who might be interested in the service, is willing to post in hyperlocal Facebook groups, put up posters, and give talks at local venues and on Zoom -- and you recognize the value that Rural Carpool could have in your area... then let's get started!

How do I start a Hub in my region?