Employees on the Technopark and Infopark campuses can now use a digital ride sharing platform to offer co-workers a pick-up or hitch a ride to their workplace.
Developed by the Group of Technology companies (GTech), the industry body of IT companies in the State, the platform named G-Ride is designed to encourage carpooling and ride-sharing among IT professionals. It is available as a mobile application in Android and iOS versions.
Launching G-Ride here on Sunday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the facility would be a model for the State. He stressed the need to explore technology-enabled, citizen- driven models to ease traffic problems, tackle parking woes, reduce fuel consumption, lower pollution levels and provide convenient modes of transport.
“The target is to bring down the use of vehicles by half,” said Hrishikesh Nair, CEO, IT Parks who was present at the function.
“A large number of employees in the IT sector drive or ride to work. About 90% of them drive alone. G-Ride gives them the option to offer friends and colleagues a pick-up or share a ride with someone in the neighbourhood,” K.Nanda Kumar, Chairman, GTech said.
Secretary, IT, M.Sivasankar said G-Ride would find acceptability among IT professionals who are proficient in devising and using such platforms.
“It offers robust security features like the facility for riders to view the profiles of co- passengers in advance and the option to restrict car pooling options to the same gender,” explains Lashmy Menon, a senior software engineer with UST Global who has already offered close to 100 rides in her car and covered 1,500 km during the testing phase.
