[mjs7231]

I was interested in checking this out until you mentioned driver is paid at most $0.54 per mile. That really stinks for city travel where commute times are long and parking at the downtown destinations is expensive. There is no incentive for me to pick up a carpooler on my 30 minute 6 mile drive into the city where parking costs $26/day. In rush hour traffic, it'll easily add an extra 15-20 minutes to my commute each way to pick anyone up.

It would subsidize $6.50 of my parking but I'd end up with an extra 30-40m of driving each day. Perhaps it's better than nothing?

[tytso]

If you are going into the city anyway for work, you can drop off your passenger near a subway stop, and continue into work. The assumption is that you were driving anyway, and so the cost of adding a carpooler and dropping him or her maybe 3-5 minutes out of your normal drive.

You're right that if you need to go out of your way at pickup or dropoff, or if you weren't going to drive into the city anyway because parking is $$$, this isn't going to work for you. But then that wasn't the intended target audience. If the goal is to get cars off the road, and you weren't going to drive, but take light rail as the saner way to commute into the city --- then by all means, continue using rail or light rail for your commute!

[halflings]

If picking up somebody adds 15-20 minutes to your 30 minutes commute, it's probably not worth carpooling in the first place... if you're ready to make that sacrifice for a financial incentive, you should use Lyft or Uber instead.