sharing a car to uni: start with your class
the easiest car group is already in your class.
monday, quarter to eight. the queue into the campus car park crawls forward, and almost every car has one person inside.
that isn't just an impression. the Universitat Politècnica de València measured it while preparing its mobility plan: 1.2 people per car. it also gave the reasons people still drive in: distance, timetables and public transport that doesn't connect well.
if you look up how to share a car to university, almost every answer sends you to an app to find someone going your way. that can work. but the empty seat that's easiest to fill isn't a stranger's. it belongs to someone you already share a class with.
the car group that's easiest to keep going is already in your class. you don't need to find anyone: you need to get organised.
your people first, then your people's people
start with people you know who live nearby: your flatmate, the people from your town studying in another faculty, the person who sits next to you and spends an hour on the bus.
the second circle is bigger than it looks. your lab partner's friend, someone in the group's brother, whoever heads back to the same town on fridays. with them you don't start from zero: someone you both know vouches for each of you.
the third circle is the whole campus: people leaving your area at the same time as you. it makes sense when none of your own are going your way, and on naiss it shows up in exactly that order, after your own people.
- your people
- good for: the daily run to class.
- your people's people
- good for: the friday trip back to your town.
- the whole campus
- good for: when none of your own is going your way.
your timetable isn't an office timetable
on monday you start at nine, on tuesday at eleven, and on thursday you have nothing until the afternoon. in january it all changes. and during exams nobody knows when they'll finish.
that's why a class car group isn't organised like a work one. don't try to make every day fit: find the two or three days when your timetables line up and start there. sharing some days still counts.
the way there and the way back are separate agreements. arriving together for the first class doesn't mean leaving together. if one of you stays in the library until late, the other doesn't have to wait.
- share your timetables
- at the start of each term, not once a year.
- pick the days that line up
- two or three is enough to start.
- agree the way back separately
- arriving together doesn't mean waiting for each other.
- look at it again in exams
- timetables change, and so can the group.
if it's your parents' car, check the insurance before the timetable
plenty of people start their degree driving the family car. before it becomes the group's car, talk to whoever holds the insurance.
whoever takes out a policy must tell the insurer what affects the risk, and let it know if something makes that risk worse during the contract. someone who has just passed their test driving every day is exactly the kind of thing worth asking about. better a phone call now than a surprise after a bump.
one thing that reassures passengers: compulsory insurance covers the personal injuries of the people travelling in the car. what it excludes are the driver's own.
insurance doesn't settle the conversation about costs. for that, here's our guide to splitting petrol without feeling cheap.
the ride home from the party is decided before you go out
getting to a party organises itself. getting home at four in the morning doesn't.
for your first two years with a licence, the permitted alcohol limit is lower than the general one. our rule is simpler than the law: whoever drives home doesn't drink. and that gets decided before you go out, not at the door of the club.
if nobody wants to be the driver that night, that's an answer too: the night bus, a shared taxi or staying over. what doesn't work is picking a driver by elimination at the end of the night.
where naiss comes in
with naiss you create a routine for your journey to class, with your days and times, just once. naiss prepares the rides for the coming weeks and shows you who fits: first your friends and people you've already travelled with, then anyone going your way at that time. you choose who you join and who you invite. here's how matches and routines work.
when you set off, one person starts the journey and the others join from their phones. set it up before you pull away: whoever drives, drives. tabs keeps the group's accounts with no naiss fee, and you send each other the money outside naiss however you like.
and you get paid for the energy you save by sharing the car: that's the energy bonus, and it comes as sparkies to the driver and the passengers alike. everyone in the car needs naiss.
an app won't find you better company than the people already in your class. what it can do is make going together the easy option.
if your class is already heading to the same place, download naiss and start with the days that line up.