Carpooling in Dubai !

Dubai suffers from a great deal of road congestions, especially in the peak hours of commuting. There have been different implementations and practices addressing the congestion problems and trying to find easements for the road users.

Carpooling has not been a familiar practice what so ever in the United Arab Emirates until the year 2008 where a car-pooling initiation started to elaborate. The rates of carpooling have been increasing since then.

Dubai road authorities launched an app called “Sharkeni” (Arabic for “share with me”), which they thought it would make it easier for commuters to connect. The launch for this service has been driven by the need to reduce the number of cars on the streets during rush hours and reduce petrol expenditures.

The app and the website used for this service requires the users to have an electronic permit to operate the carpool and this permit can be obtained by online registration. The registration for the permit is free and valid for six months and can be renewed after the six month for free.

The RTA imposes a set of criteria that has to be met and there are fines that get released for any violation act. All registered drivers are eligible to take 4 passengers and they will be fined if spotted picking random strangers or getting profits and using carpooling for other motives. However, the RTA allows the passengers to split the fuel money and maintenance expenses.

The app helps the users of this service to find each other. The passengers provide their location or a landmark where they want to be picked up from, the place where they are traveling to, and the time, by doing so a list of active drivers near by will be shown and the passengers can choose from the list. Meanwhile, The drivers will look up passengers near by to pick them up.

The usage of this service will not only contributes to reducing congestion, but it will help in protecting the environment and the economy by decreasing fuel consumption and pollution. It will help in providing more parking spaces around the work area and help in maintaining the physical and mental health of the workers by reducing the pressure associated with driving in congested roads.

There have been proposals for incentives & rewards to encourage the usage of this service.