Swiss made carpooling system seduces the Italians

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Dimitri Loringett

11.07.2019
Milan

Bepooler has won a public call of the city of Milan. The start-up continues to grow in Italy where it had attracted already several well-known companies as clients.   

Commuting to work towards urban centres is on the rise. So are traffic and the prices of parking spaces (when available…). Cities all around the globe are struggling to find solutions, but enhancing public transportation is often not enough – besides being costly. This is where the benefits of the so-called sharing economy – or, more appropriately, access economy – can be seen. Carpooling is one of the earliest ideas developed in advanced economies to help reduce traffic in urban areas and to contain transportation costs. Though not quite a novelty (in the US, it was prominent during the two oil crisis in the 1970s), carpooling in Europe is gaining momentum as it is seen as a simple way to address the issues of hyper-congested roads and skyrocketing parking fees.

Among those who have spotted the trend early on we find the Lugano-based startup company BePooler, which has developed an innovative system for carpooling through a web platform and related app and has managed to entice none other than the Italian city of Milan, faced with the consequences of the one million commuters who enter the capitol of Lombardy every day – tens of thousands of which travel with their own car. In June, it was announced that BePooler was the winner of the public call launched by the Milan Municipality to find solutions to help reduce traffic and improve air quality. The testing and evaluation phase already started. To promote carpooling, the city authorities and its public transport enterprise ATM made 48 free parking spaces available for vehicles with at least two people sharing a ride to and from the city. 

The Swiss startup is not new to the milanesi: employees at large corporations such as Intesa Sanpaolo (financial services), Allianz (insurance), and utilities provider A2a are current adopters of the platform, taking advantage thus of the benefits provided, like savings on fuel, duty stamps, insurance premia, and of course parking fees (and fines…).

Successful start in Ticino 
BePooler was created in Lugano in 2015 from the simple but innovative idea of providing companies and individual users with a fast and safe way to share the commute towards the workplace, thus reducing traffic, expenses, the use of private vehicles and, ultimately, urban pollution. The success of the project allowed BePooler to expand across borders and open offices in Italy in 2016, establishing itself as a model of corporate welfare, sustainability for municipalities and satisfaction for the employees who use it. At present, the platform counts around 6.500 registered users.

In Ticino, where commuter traffic is a major issue (more than 60.000 border workers enter the Canton every day, mostly by car), over 500 routes have been created so far and are being shared every week through the BePooler app which, when added to the around 1500 available through the new Digital Wallet & Friendly Trip feature, have so far allowed to ‘save’ around 500.000 km, or 70.000 kg of CO2 emissions, for an estimated annual financial benefit of each commuter of over 2000 Swiss francs. Early adopters of the platform in Ticino include SMEs and larger industrial establishments such as Synthes, Zambon (pharma), Acer Switzerland, and Ginsana (now SFI Switzerland) – only to mention a few.

Partner of the Summer Olympics 2024 in Paris
Users at these and other companies will benefit, starting July 15, from the enhanced features of the mentioned New Digital Wallet & Friendly Trip, which provides levels of automation through the app, e.g. for the flow of funds between carpoolers (with Stripe), or voluntary ‘free rides’ (the so-called ‘Friendly Trip’ function), and more. The company will also grow by expanding to other countries. BePooler has been chosen as official partner by the organising committee of the 2024 Summer Olympics to be held in Paris.

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