Residents can offer their daily journeys on the application, if they travel less than eighty kilometers. On the driver’s side, the journey earns between two and three euros. Unbeatable rates made possible by subsidies from local authorities. Cost of the operation for Touraine Vallée de l’Indre: around ten thousand euros. For Morgane Cadot, director of development for the community of communes, the game is worth the candle: “75% of journeys are made by car in our territory and 75% of drivers are alone in their vehicle, so we realize that there is great potential to reduce the number of cars on our roads thanks to carpooling.”
The operation is very interesting for Blablacar, which thanks to these subsidies, offers unbeatable prices, and attracts new users. Benjamine Dupire is responsible for the platform’s partnerships: “The goal is to integrate it as a solution for daily journeys, both to go to work but also to go to sports or other activities”.
This partnership model has been tested by the Tours Metropolis for several months, and it works! Christophe Boulanger, first vice-president of the Touraine mobility union, even wants a partnership on a departmental scale: “we are quite satisfied, today we have nearly 4000 monthly journeys. That’s the same number of cars that don’t fit into the Metropolis and we are only at the level of the mobility union. From the moment other communities join this system, we will see the volume and flows increase, we will also boost the service since we will have more journey offers available to potential carpoolers.”
Further south, the Chinon-Vienne et Loire Community of Communes has been a partner of Blablacar for a year. The result: 3,700 euros in subsidies paid for more than one thousand seven hundred journeys. Encouraging figures that lead to the renewal of the partnership for the year 2025.
