- BlaBlaCar aims to fill a gap in carpooling services, ensuring every car trip becomes an opportunity to carpool.
- Zen leverages the inherent flexibility of occasional trips, allowing carpoolers to adapt their personal travel plans more easily.
- BlaBlaCar is expanding its experimentation to about ten regions in France, following a pilot phase conducted on a smaller sample.
Occasional short-distance trips: the blind spot of shared mobility
Since 2006, BlaBlaCar has been working to democratize carpooling, achieving significant progress in two main segments:
- Long-distance travel with BlaBlaCar, where the costs associated to such trips naturally encourages drivers and passengers to choose to carpool.
- Commuting with BlaBlaCar Daily, where the regularity of trips and support from local authorities and businesses foster the creation of groups of carpoolers.
The result? In just 12 years, the number of carpooling passengers has grown twentyfold.
That said, there are still segments where solo car use dominates: occasional short-distance trips, which account for one-third of trips taken in France, 85% of which are car-dependant.
No solution exists today that is fully adapted to the needs of carpoolers. For drivers, the organization required is deemed too complicated, for passengers the options lack flexibility, especially when it comes to a true door-to-door experience.
Transforming every trip — even common journeys such as visiting a loved one, attending a match, heading to a ski resort — into an opportunity to carpool remains a challenge.
Door-to-door trips to break the glass ceiling for carpooling
For short and occasional trips, drivers and passengers face fewer time constraints. However, they often feel that planning a carpool for such a simple journey isn’t worth the effort.
To make these carpools possible, Zen focuses on the inherent flexibility of these trips, paired with an app that simplifies the planning process by automatically connecting passengers with drivers whose routes align.
With Zen, all carpools are door-to-door for passengers, removing any need for them to use a car of their own. To achieve this, the algorithm prioritizes drivers with the most compatible routes, minimizing detours.
In return, drivers can share the cost of the entire trip, including any potential detours. This ensures a fair distribution of expenses between the driver and passenger.
These features create a seamless and equitable carpooling experience, that appeals everyone.
Experimentation in around ten regions
Our initial tests in the Gulf of Morbihan revealed that 80% of Zen trips have no public transport alternative. This demonstrates the true value of carpooling as a solution to improve accessibility in remote areas.
After the first test launched earlier this year in the Gulf of Morbihan, since 5th December, BlaBlaCar has now expanded testing to around 10 regions in France:
Gulf of Morbihan; Vannetais; Landes coast; Medoc; Hérault; Basque Country; Tarentaise Valley; Nantes Country; Oisans and Grésivaudan valleys; Thônes Valley; Western Provence; Mother-of-Pearl Coast.
This new phase in the deployment of Zen aims to confirm, through a large-scale launch, the key factors identified to expand carpooling for short and occasional trips.
Although France is already a pioneer on the topic, I am convinced that it is still possible to further innovate carpooling, making it a natural reflex for all motorists, whatever their journeys.
