How does it work?

The my UNSW Carpools platform is driven by the most sophisticated carpool management system available to date. The system allows you to identify and communicate with potential travel partners without disclosing contact details to them, other than your first name and an identity that is internal to the my UNSW Carpools website.

Registration is simple!

You will be asked to enter the details of your preferred trip including:

• Departure + Destination addresses
• Times of Travel
• Days a week on which you want to carpool
• Your type of car - and how many carpool partners you are prepared to travel with, 1, 2, 3 or more
• Your preference to be a Driver, a Passenger or if you are prepared to be Either a passenger or driver.
• Personal Preferences about things like music, smoking, preferred gender to travel with etc.

You can alter and update your travel details and preferences at any time. Once having registered you are will immediately have an identity on the my UNSW Carpools data base that allows you to use the internal Contacts and Messages system to send messages to other users.

The system uses three matching processes to find people who are best suited to share your commuting.

"Three match processes"

Geographic matching - Comparing points of departure and destination routes for suitable meeting points.

Chronological matching - Comparing preferred times of departure and arrival to get the most timely fit to your preferred travel time.

Personal Preferences - You may prefer to travel with male/female, those who listen to music, or those who maybe a smoker /non smoker ....the choice is yours! We will show you their preferences, and you make the decision.

Because one of the primary objectives of my UNSW Carpools is to reduce the amount of fuel used by commuters, the program looks for matches that minimise the amount of travel required to meet up and whose destinations are very close together.

The best possible matches are displayed in ranked order. The 'Matches' page also tells you the days on which your travel plans and those of a possible match align.

The details of each potential carpool partner are displayed along with a symbol D = Driver, P = Passenger or E = Either. If E is displayed this means that person is prepared to act as either a Driver or a Passenger in a carpool.

At that point you can send a message on the my UNSWCarpools messaging system to those partner(s) you are interested in discussing a carpool with. That can be done without revealing any personal details about yourself.