The BlablaCar app is available to download today from the iTunes store and encourages a savvy, sustainable and social new way to travel across the UK and Europe.

Main features of the app include:

Drivers post a trip: Post a trip, whether it’s a one-off journey, weekly trip or daily commute then add the number of available seats and price per passenger.

Passengers find a ride: Choose from thousands of posted trips then contact drivers going where you want to go and share their ride.

Contact other travellers quickly and easily: Message for free or call the person you want to share a ride with.

Rate your fellow travellers: Rate the people you have shared a ride with to let the community know how it went. This helps to build a trustworthy and transparent community.

BlablaCar is the world’s fastest growing and most active community of its type, with one billion miles collectively shared and over eight million passengers transported, more than half of which has happened in the last 12 months. The site offers more than one million empty seats every month and has 1.7m members including 400,000 drivers. Trips posted range from long distance trips across Europe to daily commutes.

To ensure the quality of the matching between drivers and passengers, the website displays members’ preferences: smoking or not, animals accepted in the car or not, and so on. Members also specify how “chatty” they are by choosing either “Bla”, “Blabla” or “Blablabla”; hence the name BlablaCar.

PostoinAuto offers more than 30,000 empty seats every month, a number which is growing exponentially. The company was founded in 2010 and is led by the site’s founder Olivier Bremer.

Key facts about BlablaCar.com:

• It is the world’s fastest growing and most active community of its type – trips posted range from long distance trips across Europe to daily commutes
• Has collectively shared one billion miles
• Has transported over eight million passengers
• Offers more than one million empty seats every month
• Has 1.7m members including 400,000 drivers
• Announced in January that it had received $10 million funding from Accel Partners and existing investors ISAI and Cabiedes & Partners

For more information please see the full press release.

Make sure you know what your car companion’s chatty habits are next time you share a journey with someone as, although a third of British motorway drivers admit spending most of their journey chatting, 11% are looking for complete silence when travelling with companions.

Insights into just how ‘bla bla’ we really are on the roads from BlablaCar, which connects drivers with paying passengers, reveals  that:

• 50% of the early twentysomethings are looking to talk for the whole journey
• Nearly 40% of over 55s preferring to drive in silence, compared to only one in five 18-24 year olds
• Londoners are seen as the chattiest car companions (18%), with Liverpudlians following a close second (16%)
• Nearly 40% of women chat continuously and look for similarly chatty passengers
• Most drivers admit they typically look for a passenger to chat with

The research also revealed that:

• One in five Brits (19%) choosing people from Liverpool as the most comical companions
• Edinburgh passengers however fail to raise a smile as only 4.5% think they make Britain’s funniest car companions
• Whilst 30% of those polled want nothing to do with celeb culture, chatty London comedian Michael McIntyre will never be short of a ride, with 35% voting him as their ideal car companion over the likes of Geordie beauty Cheryl Cole (9%), Robbie Williams (8%) and Wayne Rooney (1%)

Image source

Research was conducted with 2,000 UK adults.

With over 1.6m users, BlablaCar is Europe’s most active online collaborative consumption community. In an age where the average car carries just 1.2 people, BlablaCar’s ambition is to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles by rationalising people’s use of cars.

In the past few years, BlablaCar’s service has experienced an explosive growth, reaching:

• 1.6m members, including 400,000 drivers offering their empty seats
• One billion miles collectively shared by the community
• 8m passengers transported with more than half in the last 12 months
• 40m page views per month

While the service has benefited from both high petrol prices and increasing travel fares, research conducted on BlablaCar.com reveals that members widely use the service for other reasons such as meeting new people or simply choosing a more eco-friendly travel option.

So as millions prepare to hit the roads this week to escape the now annual chaotic scenes at UK train stations, new research from Blablacar.com, which connects drivers with people looking for a ride, reveals how friendly and chatty Brits are on car journeys.

Here are some highlights from the research:

• 45% of Brits find travelling alone in a car boring, lonely and for some a bit scary!

When it comes to age and gender, however, there are some differences:

• 43% of 18-24 year olds get bored travelling alone on car journeys lasting over an hour
• Nearly 40% of over 55s however find travelling alone a real pleasure
• Only (27%) of over 55s spending much of a car journey chatting compared to half of 18-24s
• In fact 18% of over 55s prefer not to talk at all (compared to 5% of 18-24 year olds).
• women really do spend more time talking with nearly 40% admitting to spending much of a long car journey chatting
• 30% of men admit to spending much of the journey chatting with passengers when driving, however only 5% of men want someone to listen to them when they are in the passenger seat

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

Research of 2,000 people by OnePoll.

About BlablaCar.com

BlablaCar.com is the UK’s fastest growing site for shared car journeys. Connecting drivers who have empty seats with people looking for a cheaper way to travel to the same destination, BlablaCar.com launched in the UK in Spring 2011 following huge success in France (covoiturage.fr) and Spain (comuto.es).

Comuto, BlablaCar.com’s parent company, first launched in France in 2006. Since then, one billion kilometres have been driven and over 200,000 tons of CO2 saved. More than 100,000 new people sign up to BlablaCar.com every month across Europe, with over 10 million journeys offered every year and with £100 million saved in journey costs.

With 90% of Brits feeling that the overall cost of running a car has become increasingly difficult to manage, people are resorting to sometimes desperate measures to manage these costs according to new research from carpooling experts BlablaCar.

20% of women have regularly driven with the fuel light on because they feel they can’t afford to fill up, with 18-55s being the worst age offenders[i]. And this is set to continue with 87% of people concerned about the rising costs of petrol, including 9% who don’t even drive. Over 50% think car cost rises are a critical concern.

The AA recently identified that, compared to a year ago, “a typical 50-litre petrol refill now costs £9.61 more, adding £40.81 to the monthly petrol spend of a two-car family”[ii].

And this car cost concern has also meant that we are driving less with 38% admitting to having reduced the number of long distance they have taken in the last year. Those from Scotland (42%) and Yorkshire (42%) have reduced the most across the country, with the older generation reducing their journeys the most against other age groups. With trains recently branded the ‘rich man’s toy’, many people are being forced to stay at home rather than make a trip.

Interestingly, 11% have already started to share more of their journeys to reduce running costs. Carpooling can help drivers save a significant amount of money each month, reducing the impact that the increase in the price of petrol has on their budget.  BlablaCar for example could save drivers as much as £60 on a single journey[iii] for a route such as London to Manchester, offsetting not only their entire petrol cost but also most of their vehicle running costs.

[ii] http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/news/august-fuel-price-report-2011.html (17/08/11)

[iii] Figure is based on the following information from Covoiturage.fr: an average trip has 1.5 to 2 passengers and €36 is collected by the driver on average. An average trip in an average car would cost €45. An average 80% saving.

Over a third of Brits think that the BBC’s claims that the move to Manchester will be cheaper in the long run according to a new poll from BlablaCar, a site which connects drivers with people looking for a ride.

As the BBC tries to save £670m a year, BlablaCar also asked people how the BBC should reduce their travel costs when they move. A third stated that BBC executives should be made to share car journeys from London to Manchester in order to save costs whilst a further 37 percent believe the BBC should run a regular minibus service to ferry Londoners to Manchester and vice versa.

The rising cost of travel means people are increasingly turning to new ways to travel, with finding passengers to ‘rent’  empty seats on long distance trips growing in popularity amongst ‘savvy socials’. New websites such as BlablaCar.com have exploded, with over 100,000 joining every month across Europe.

The site combines the features of a travel site with a social network where drivers offer their empty seats and get paid by passengers joining them en route. For passengers, the service offers an extremely cost effective alternative to any other form of transport. While both drivers and passengers save a significant amount of money, they also find it environmentally friendly and much more fun.

-ENDS-

Pictured above: BBC London

Boilerplate

BlablaCar (www.blablacar.com) is the UK’s fastest growing site for shared car journeys. Connecting drivers who have empty seats with people looking for a cheaper way to travel to the same destination, BlablaCar launched in the UK in Spring 2011 following huge success in France (covoiturage.fr) and Spain (comuto.es).

Comuto, BlablaCar’s parent company, first launched in France in 2006. Since then, one billion kilometres have been driven and over 200,000 tons of CO2 saved. More than 100,000 new people sign up to BlablaCar every month across Europe, with over 10 million journeys offered every year and with £100 million saved in journey costs.

Carpooling company, Comuto, has announced that one billion kilometres have been driven by people using its service to book and share car journeys in Europe, with passengers sharing the cost of the trip by filling free seats. The company launched in the UK this year (where it is known as BlablaCar), having first launched in France in 2006 (Covoiturage) and has launched in Spain (Comuto) recently.

The site now has over 1.3 million users and is growing by 100,000 users per month. Drivers have saved more than £100m and also over 200,000 tons of CO2, making it an environmentally friendly way to travel.

The results are further proof of the rise of collaborative consumption, an economic model based on sharing or renting access to products as opposed to ownership – in this case effectively renting out spare seats in cars on long journeys.

Research commissioned by BlablaCar[i] in the UK suggests that the popularity of the service is being fuelled by increasing travel costs as drivers and passengers are changing their travelling habits to reduce costs:

• 89 per cent feel that the overall running cost of their car (such as petrol, insurance, MOT) has become increasingly difficult to manage
• 87 per cent are concerned about the cost of petrol
• 66 per cent are put off going on short breaks in the UK because of the high cost of rail travel

To use BlablaCar, drivers post details of their trip, the number of seats available and a suggested price, typically set by the marketplace. Potential passengers searching for a specific trip then choose whether or not this fits with what they want to pay.

The service is a combination of a travel site and a community site, with drivers and passengers posting details about themselves and rating each other on a range of criteria, from performance and reliability to how chatty they are. The name BlablaCar comes from drivers rating how talkative they are as ‘bla’ (not very chatty), ‘blabla’ (likes a natter) and ‘blablabla’ (won’t shut up). The community aspect ensures transparency, safety and that the market effectively and efficiently sets the price of each trip.

Pictured: Nicolas Brusson, Co-founder of BlablaCar

Tourism in Britain could be at risk from escalating rail fares, as research reveals that 78 per cent of people think that UK rail fares for journeys of over 100 miles are too expensive, with 66 per cent put off going on short breaks in the UK because of this high cost[1].

The research, commissioned by BlablaCar (www.blablacar.com) a site that joins drivers and passengers together to share car journeys, also found that 72 percent would go on more weekend breaks in the UK if the cost of travel was lower.

To demonstrate the significant discount offered by long distance carpooling over rail travel, particularly when not pre-booked, BlablaCar has compared Friday train prices on popular weekend routes and found that prices offered or recommended on its site work out on average 63 per cent cheaper than those offered by train operators.

BlablaCar reviewed the cheapest train tickets[2] on a number of intercity routes leaving on a Friday between 6pm and 9pm and compared this with the average price on its site. The test was performed on the Tuesday afternoon prior to the Friday of travel to simulate the behaviour of someone looking for a ticket at the last minute.[3]

Full results can be viewed in the table below. Savings include:

• Travelling from London to Sheffield gives the greatest percentage saving, being 79 per cent cheaper  carpooling with BlablaCar (£15 compared with £71)
• Travellers heading from Birmingham to Edinburgh save 67% of the cost (£26 compared with £80) and are scheduled to arrive almost an hour ahead of the train
• Those in a hurry travelling from Glasgow to Leeds would be advised to consider long distance carpooling. Passengers save 44 per cent of the cost (£19 compared to £35) and get there one hour 25 minutes ahead of those taking the train
• Taking a route from Birmingham to Southampton is 75 per cent cheaper carpooling with BlablaCar and is no slower (£13 compared to £52)

Brusson also noted that “Petrol prices are also having an impact on our purse strings. It is becoming more and more necessary for people to consider alternative, more cost efficient, ways of reducing their travel costs.”

[2] Price comparisons were always made between the cheapest train ticket available and the average recommended BlablaCar price (either seen or recommended on the site)

[3]Train fares were viewed on nationalrail.co.uk or trainline.com on 9^th August 2011

It is a combination of a travel site and a social network for people looking to share car journeys. Drivers post details of their trip at a suggested price and potential passengers heading the same way search for a specific trip then choose whether or not this fits with what they want to pay.

Where has it come from?

BlablaCar originated in Europe, where it is known as Covoiturage.fr in France and Comuto.com in Spain.

What are the benefits?

So far, over one million people have shared five million trips and saved more than 200,000 tonnes of CO2 since September 2009.

Drivers save an average of 80 per cent on the cost of their journey – a driver doing a regular long distance commute each week (e.g. London – Manchester) could save as much as £500 per month.

Drivers and passengers have saved a total of more than €100m by using the service.

Sharing car journeys is also a much more sociable way of travelling!

Watch our video…

To get a feel for what the site’s all about!

Want more information?

Click on the infographic and images to the left to download or email me at kristanne.roberts@kaizo.net.

We’ve got some insights into consumer habits coming shortly so let me know if you’re interested in receiving these.