The Development of Carpool in China and ITS Market Demographic Take Shanghai As a Case Study

Most of the large cities and metropolitan areas in the world have congestion problems, especially at the peak hour. New York, San Francisco, London, Paris are all the examples, which cities have an obvious center. The commuters, who drive for work, face the wasting of money and time on the way home, and the local governments also need to solve the complaining from the citizens about the everyday congestion and improve the effectiveness of the road system. Carpool is a popular way to improve the capability of road network, reducing the unnecessary vehicles rushing into the center city and the need of parking places. In China, carpool is still a new born child, and because of the accompanying social and legal problems, there are no actual based transportation policy called carpool, and also no permit of formal carpool organization or website. But carpool is still a great idea to save money and improve the trip comfort. This dissertation is an analysis of the informal carpool in Shanghai, using a survey on the internet. The survey got back 552 respondents, who have the experience of carpool. The final data can greatly reflect the development and its market demographic.