"Drivers Wanted" - Carma Calls On Drivers To Help Ease BART Strike Crisis

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time in its history, BART will be suffering through two strikes within one month if the next BART strike kicks off on August 5th as is currently anticipated.

Riders who depend on BART services are being advised to turn to carpooling as their best option because the additional bus, ferry and Caltrain services only add up to serving about 35,000 of the 200,000 daily commuters, and "demand far exceeded capacity" for these services during the first BART strike, with waits as long as several hours for packed ferry services.

"The closest thing there is to BART's capacity is the unused seats in people's cars," said John Goodwin, MTC spokesman. "We have three recommendations: carpool, carpool, carpool."

Drivers who travel alone to San Francisco next week will face a hellish journey spent in gridlocked traffic. The only way around this is to pick up two or more passengers and access the carpool lane.

With hundreds of thousands of stranded riders, drivers have an endless supply of passengers to pick up - provided they know where to go. There are two types of places drivers are needed:

• 25 East Bay traditional casual carpooling sites
• Carma carpooling 'super hubs' in Berkeley, Pleasant Hill, and Hayward

See http://car.ma/pickup for all locations.

Registered Carma drivers will be rewarded daily with $25 or more for picking up their fellow commuters using the app, according to the rules of the program. The app can be downloaded at http://car.ma/download.

On the evening return route from San Francisco, drivers are asked to pick up passengers at Beale Street or Spear Street locations. Drivers will be rewarded by the MTC with $5 gift coupons while supplies last.

For more information on all types of carpooling ahead of Monday's shutdown, visit http://car.ma/bartstrike.

About Carma
Founded in 2007, Carma (formerly known as Avego) leads the world in carpooling technology, helping people team up to solve the commute. Headquartered in Cork, Ireland, with offices in Silicon Valley, Austin and Dublin, Carma's customers include cities, governments, public transport operators and tens of thousands of individual consumers and private transport operators. For more on Carma, see http://car.ma or download the app from the iPhone App Store or Android's Google Play.

SOURCE Carma