Cities such as Washington, D.C., Houston, and San Francisco have a practice called “slugging” or “casual carpooling” in which people seeking rides wait at commuter parking lots for rides.  The incentive for drivers is that picking up one or more riders allows them to drive in occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes reserved for cars occupied by at least two or three people.  Most cities have no HOV lanes, but the founder of mycasualcarpool.com wanted to bring the benefits of “slugging” to other cities.

Casual carpooling requires:

· drivers and their vehicles
· people seeking rides
· parking lots and
· an incentive for commuting drivers to pick up would-be commuting riders. 

Drivers, their vehicles, and people seeking rides are everywhere.  All that is needed to start casual carpooling in any town or city is parking lots and an incentive for commuting drivers to pick up would-be commuting riders.

There are parking lots that are hardly used during working hours in virtually every neighborhood in the United States and Canada.  Many of those parking lots are associated with houses of worship and are mainly used on weekends.  Others are associated with shopping centers that have seen better days and stadiums.  Many people live within walking distance, biking distance, or a short drive of those parking lots.

Many areas have one or more large facilities –plants, mills, office building/parks, downtown areas, etc. – that employ a large percentage of local residents.  In such areas, many people in the same neighborhood will be commuting to the same place every day around the same time.  Sharing rides would obviously save money, but conventional carpools usually have problems such as the habitually late commuter who can cause everyone to be late.  Such carpools do not usually last long.

An obvious incentive for drivers to pick up passengers is cash.  While drivers cannot usually charge riders without obtaining some sort of special license, nothing prevents passengers from contributing to the expenses of drivers providing them with rides.

Mycasualcarpool.com allows commuters to propose their own commuter lots for commuting to a particular facility or part of town.