Carpooling is very popular in France. In this article, we will see the different companies offering carpooling.
🚘 Carpooling in France
Carpooling is very popular in France nowadays. It consists of a driver offering seats to people who want to travel in the same direction as the driver. In exchange, the passengers are sharing the different costs with the driver (tolls, gas). Practically, you will just pay a fixed fee set by the driver, in order to be a passenger of the car.
In France, this mode of transportation is now very common to go to cities for cheaper than the train or go more easily to cities and villages which are harder to reach by other modes of transportation.
However, this mode of transportation is less reliable in terms of the time of departure/arrival because you will depend a lot on what the other passengers are doing and how flexible is the driver to please his passengers.
⚠️ Don’t forget that your driver is not a taxi driver.
If you have some constraints (time, boarding zone, drop-off zone, etc), you should message the driver first so you are sure that the driver can help you with your request.
Here is the list of the different services offering carpooling in France:
🚘 The worldwide leader in carpooling
ℹ️ Information
BlaBlaCar is the leader with 20 million people using their service.
For people who are worried about their safety, BlaBlaCar has multiple initiatives:
- the drivers are rated
- the driver is paid after the completion of the trip: the passenger will need to give a code to the driver in order to release the money.
⚠️ If you are a user from another country, you might have an issue with the mobile app which doesn’t show you any rides, whereas you can see them if you use their website.
🌐 Website
🚘 The commission-free carpooling website
⚠️ You might have fewer drivers than BlaBlaCar
ℹ️ Information
Mobicoop wanted to come back to the origin of carpooling with mutual aid, by offering a commission-free alternative to BlaBlaCar. You will pay for your ride directly to the driver in the car.
However, you will have fewer drivers than on BlaBlaCar.
On their website, you can see the number of carpools done by the driver, and you can report a driver in case of an issue.
🌐 Website
📱 The Essential Mobile Apps
You will usually don’t look to do carpooling only in order to go to your destination, but you will compare the carpooling between different modes of transportation such as the bus or the train. Here are the mobile applications to compare them all into a single unified view:
🎟️ Compare flights, bus, trains, and carpool
ℹ️ Information
Price for the trains
Price for the buses
Click to show more affiliates to see the carpooling results
Carpooling showed in the results
Omio is a German ticket comparator for flights, trains, buses, and carpooling. It is really convenient to have the four of them shown in the same interface so you don’t need to go back and forth between multiple interfaces.
🌐 Website
🇫🇷 The official SNCF app to book your ticket on bus, train, and carpool
ℹ️ Information
SNCF Connect: book your ticket (train)
SNCF Connect: book your ticket (bus or carpool)
SNCF Connect is the official ticket booking website from SNCF. You will be able to book your train, bus, and even carpool tickets in Europe easily, within the same app.
You will be able to see the prices in the different classes.
You will even be able to add your loyalty and railcards to see the discount available with them.
You might have fewer countries covered than Trainline, but it still works well.
🌐 Website
Conclusion
If you want to know other ways to travel in France, check this article:
