The initiative to start hello&bye, a carpooling service for students, started because of the experience that Zarehmi Barceló had while backpacking in Europe. Looking for a cheaper way to travel in Spain, she recurred to a carpooling service called Blah Blah Car. If a participant of the service is headed to the same location as you are, they pick you up and you only have to pay them a small fee. Zarehmi came back to Puerto Rico and Luis Gonzáles was headed to Portugal, that’s when she recommended him to use Blah Blah Car, not only because it is cheaper, but because you get to meet new people. When Luis came back from Portugal, he met up with Zarehmi to talk, and they started to analyze the value of a car in Puerto Rico. Focusing around the idea of a car being a necessity in our Island, they decided to start a platform named hello&bye, where people could get to know this carpooling system and try to adopt it in our daily transportation.
“People are still shy about the idea, of how it really works and how it would be effective for them, because of the security”, they both agreed on, “but it’s like everything, you get on the bus and you don’t know the person who sits next to you”. Don’t worry, guys! With hello&bye you can get to know your chauffer and the other passengers: it’s all part of the carpooling experience!
Even though this initiative is still growing, Luis and Zarehmi have bigger plans. “We want to expand hello&bye’s service throughout the universities of the metropolitan area of the Island, we want it to be used by students”, Zarehmi stated. Also, Luis added: “we know that there’s a community that needs this system”.
Even though hello&bye carpooling has its mind set on students, it also recognizes that it could be a transportation option for tourists. “A taxi fee is very high, so this could be another option that they could have”.
hello&bye wants for its participants to feel like a community, “we want people to feel that they should consider hello&bye for their daily transportation method”. All you have to do is ask for someone to carpool you to your destination or offer carpooling to others. You can publish your trip, establish a reasonable fee per person, and enjoy the ride!
Do you want to join the hello&bye carpooling community? Send a request to join their Facebook group: hello&bye: Carpooling para todos.