Liz Gill, co-founder of Tripmi.ie, talks about her day
I WORK IN FILM and television, and early one morning I was driving against the traffic to Ardmore Studios, in Bray, when it struck me just how many cars had only the driver in them. If each carried just one passenger, the environmental impact would be halved.
I also realised that, now everybody is so au fait with online social networking, the technology was already there to help people car pool and trip share. And that’s how Tripmi was born.
With it you can log on and find a trip mate for whatever journey you are planning, cutting the cost, and impact, of travelling. You can give preferences, too, such as whether you want to drive or be a passenger, or whether you want a smoker or a non-talker, for people like me, who hate small talk.
My office is in the attic. I start at 9.30am. Most of my morning is spent checking e-mails and answering queries. This morning I’ve also been doing some research for the site’s blog.
I’m recruiting businesses and schools to join, too, so that workers and parents can car pool. As a result a lot of my time is spent presenting to large events and music festivals around the country, such as the National Ploughing Championships, to show how Tripmi could cut down on traffic jams and parking problems.
At lunch I take the dog out for a walk and in the afternoon work with the site’s developers. We’re constantly updating it from user feedback.
The aim is to facilitate road trips abroad, too, where someone can create a public group called Istanbul or Bust, say, and then everyone who is interested can join that group.
I would love it if tourists would use it when coming to Ireland, especially since many of them like to travel the west coast, where there aren’t rail links, such as from west Cork to Mayo. And they might get to meet some real, live Irish folk, which would add to their cultural experience far better than renting a car and stressing out about road signs and which side of the road they’re on.
I’ve set Tripmi up with my partner, Breda Walsh, and our primary aim is raise enough money to cover our costs. But we do want to make money out of it, because we’ve committed to giving 50 per cent of everything the site makes to charity.
Because, as a concept, car pooling or trip sharing is not so well known here, there’s still a lot of education to be done, so I’m on the phone a lot.
At 6pm I go down and start the dinner. Unless I think there’s an emergency, nothing makes me answer the phone after that.
** Liz Gill is co-founder of Tripmi.ie
** In conversation with Sandra O'Connell