Chester County: Are You Ready to Share-a-Ride?

Laura Guman, TMACC

Does commuting to work stress you out? Are you tired of filling your gas tank, but emptying your wallet?

What if there was a way to save money on gas, and reduce your commuting frustrations? Well, there is! The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) has a resource available to Chester County residents: Share-A-Ride (SAR). DVRPC, the metropolitan planning organization for the Delaware Valley, was created in 1965 to manage transportation and regional planning in the greater Philadelphia area. DVRPC offers the Share-A-Ride (SAR) program FREE through support from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT).

The history of ridesharing dates back to WWII when it began as a way to save gas, rubber, and wear-and-tear on vehicles. In the 1940s, there were no computers. The U.S. Office of Civilian Defense ran a Car Sharing Club Exchange and Self-Dispatching System. Participants would fill out a card at the Exchange Office with their contact information and schedule, and it would be filed by geographical area. Riders would have to sort through all the cards to find rides or passengers that met their criteria. Thankfully, carpooling today is not as complicated. There’s no need to sort through cards to find your ride. The concept is much simpler: SAR is a free online service that matches commuters in southeastern Pennsylvania with potential car pool and van pool partners, transit services, and even walking and bicycling opportunities. Managed by the Transportation Management Association of Chester County (TMACC), there’s even a tool to help plan your route to work, to a doctor’s appointment, to an event, wherever you need to go.

If that isn’t enough to get you on board, SAR is sustainable too. Using the SAR program means there are less cars on the road, which means less traffic and less emissions. Sharing rides provides a major environmental benefit; cars produce carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming, and smog that contributes to asthma and other public health problems. Using Share-A-Ride is a powerful way to reduce single occupant vehicle miles driven, which then improves air quality. So, breathe easy knowing that while you are saving yourself money, and reducing your stress, you are helping improve our environment as well!

“DVRPC’s Share-A-Ride program is designed to serve employers within and those employees who travel to work sites in the full five-county southeastern Pennsylvania region, it’s very helpful for larger employers, as well as municipalities and universities, to develop their own portal to the service. This helps ‘personalize’ the service and may make it seem more comfortable for commuters to be matched with colleagues and neighbors. Any effort to make ride matching and ridesharing more attractive enables more people to share their trips and help alleviate congestion and pollution,” stated Stacy Bartels, Manager, Office of TDM Strategy and Marketing Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission

Agile Mile, in partnership with TMACC, created an easy-to-use landing page for West Chester University: students, faculty, and staff. The Agile Mile platform was first created in 2003 as a ride matching and rewards website, and has since evolved into a fully featured, cloud-based platform with web, IOS, and Android apps. The WCU landing page was TMACC’s first company specific program to personalize the match.

“The new WCU-branded ShareA-Ride landing page gives our community confidence to explore new ways of commuting —carpooling, transit, biking, and walking. Along with our Bicycle Lending Library, partnership with SEPTA to sell discounted monthly passes, and campus shuttle buses to Exton and West Chester, this is another valuable resource we offer students, faculty, and staff. This comprehensive approach will make the commute easier, less expensive, healthier, and less stressful for our community and help WCU achieve our carbon neutrality commitment,” said Bradley Flamm Director, Office of Sustainability, West Chester University.

TMACC partnered again with Agile Mile to create a more local and personable SAR landing page for Chester County businesses and their employees, to discover these sustainable travel options. When riders record their sustainable trips, they earn rewards. Enjoy additional benefits if your company is a member of a local Chester County chamber, or if you are a member of TMACC.

Tim Phelps, Executive Director of TMACC stated that “TMACC is excited to bring another transportation solution to Chester County that could reduce congestion and improve air quality. We look forward to continuing our partnership with DVRPC and Agile Mile and working with other businesses and organizations in Chester County to create similar landing pages.”

What are you waiting for? Let’s get started! Visit TMACC’s website at tmacc.org

TMACC represents the expanding region of Chester County and advocates for sustainable transportation practices and connectivity. TMACC’s membership represents over 20,000 commuters in Greater Philadelphia and includes a range of organizations in engineering, planning, law, consumer goods, finance, hospitality, education and more.