Encouragement on the Use of Carpool

When we first started the project, we brainstormed ideas about what things regarding transport and cars were not beneficial and could be changed. We thought of a lot of ideas but the one which stood out the most was Carpool; during the research process we were astonished of all the benefits it had and how such a small change in the community could do a great good. A lot of problems existing nowadays would disappear by implementing carpooling in society. To start with, ecologically talking, if people shared cars it could result in  an annual reduction of 1320 pounds of carbon monoxide and 2,376,000 pounds of carbon dioxide in the air, improving the air quality and reducing air pollution. That was the first information we found out and it encouraged us to do more research about what else could the implementation of carpool achieve. From an economical point of view, we found out that carpooling allows carpoolers to share the cost of gas and parking, reducing expenses up to 50%. This economical perspective gave a clear view of how we could attract people to implement carpool. Also, as we kept gaining information we started making our own assumption: if carpool is implemented fewer cars are going to circulate meaning that less money will be destined to construct new roads and maintain them, meaning that more taxes can be designated to other sectors like health. Moreover, we believe that is a great solution for people who are outside the coverage area of ​​public transport, meaning that people from different areas can travel together, for example to go to work, school or doctor. Additionally, we found out studies that show that the use of a carpool could significantly reduce stress levels as it is proved that traveling alone is more stressful than going in the same car with different people.

To complement our research, we did a survey in which we asked people of our community if they do carpool, how often, if they believed it could do greater good, if it could be implemented in our community and if they were willing to do it. From our community 68 families replied to our survey, this allowed us to find that 98% of the people know what carpool is, meaning that they were already acquainted with the idea; only 29% use carpool to go to school, meaning that most people in our community could start carpooling; 59% are willing to incorporate the use of carpool in daily bases; 95% believe that the use of carpool could substantially decrease the emission of toxic gases in the atmosphere, showing that people recognize that the use of carpool is a possible way to obtain a better environment. Also,  we found out that 75% believe that the use of carpool could help improve the lifestyle in our community, meaning that its use could help obtain a more united and conscious way of living especially because its use could help the environment of the community and promote safety in our streets. 

Overall, after concluding our extensive research we decided to pursue this idea and start working on the material we were going to use to advertise our project in our community.