Carpooling - Slovenia - #45HT

After hours sleeping, we were ready to check what the capital of Slovenia was going to show us. We met our Airbnb guy in the morning and he was going to the city and asked if we needed a ride. Of course we accepted it. Afterwards we were arriving in the city center and saying goodbye to our guy.

Our plans in this moment had changed a little bit. Originally we planned to spend one day in Maribor and one day in Ljubljana and then move to Croatia. The first Couchsurfer host that I had in my life was from Slovenia and she told us that there is a lake in the North with a amazing landscape. She asked us if we would like to meet her over there. We accepted the idea and we just booked Prevoz to go to Bled few hours later.

By the way what's Prevoz?

Ok, briefly I will explain you what it is. You probably guys already heard before about Blablacar, if you have the habit to travel in Europe or other countries that it exists, you probably used it at least once. It's a car pool that if you're the driver you can share the cost of your trip with other passengers and the passengers can have a shorter trip paying less than the conventional ways of transport and both of them will have a partner trip that they can exchange experiences and get know each other in this short time. It should be a kind of hitchhiking trip that you have to give some money to help the gas that car is consuming during during trip. 

This is just the idea and most of the time it isn't the way that it works. Now this conception that was built from a startup, Blablacar, just became extremely commercial and a good way how to make money, for the company and also for the driver and the passengers are paying more than just shared costs.

Since 2 years ago, Blablacar just added an administrative fee that when you're booking a ride, you're giving to them about 12% for every trip that you make. This amount of money doesn't go to the driver, but to the company. Can you imagine the total amount that they earn for all trips that they made collecting 12% for every single trip?

Blablacar is a French online marketplace for carpooling that has 60 million of users and 8 million of drivers registered. Operating in 21 countries, this company in 2015 had revenue of 80 billion euros. Evidently it's not the startup that wants connect people and help the driver and passenger to save money anymore. It's just a capitalist company pursuing the profit.

It's the same for the drivers. The idea about sharing costs was gone overtime. For a 100km trip, you'll maybe just spend 7 euros of gas in a regular car. If you really want to just share costs, you would charge 3,5 euros with another person or 2,33 with two people. But if you can save the money of the gas, why not make money out of it?

Now our society is so contaminated with the capitalist thinking that every way to make money or take advanced out of the cruel system that we live is welcomed. Then in this 100km trip you basically will charge 9 euros per each person in your trip and if it's possible you'll rent your seat for the maximum possible number of people, like 4, even if it's not comfortable for them share a small space with suitcases, backpacks and other people. You just needed 7 euros to cover the petrol cost, but you can earn up 31 euros, once 12% you gave to the Blablacar, around 5 euros. Instead help people, you just became a low cost taxi driver between cities.

In fact even if you're not planning to go to somewhere, you can use Blablacar as a driver, following the suggested prices and earn enough money to pay the gas and cover your costs trip, like accommodation and food. Cool idea, by the way.

Everything became a big capitalist system that every part is involved. Blablacar even being a cheap way how to travel, it should charge less than now, following the conception of the carpooling system.

In the ending, what's it Prevoz? It's the same idea of Blablacar, an online carpooling operated in Slovenia, but it's even simpler. It's just a website without advertising or a company working behind it. In the website basically you can search for the destination that you'll go and check a list of drivers and the schedules that you can easily get their phone number and contact them directly without any intermediary between you and the driver.

The prices are cheaper than Blablacar and there is nobody behind it gain the money. It's a directly exchanging between you and the driver. For me this is more like a paid hitchhiking. You can say to me that it’s not safe, once the driver and rider don't need to register themselves, but if you're saying it, you're not really prepared to travel by hitchhiking. Everything is about trust and connection between people. Something again that makes us more human.

Recommendation: If you're traveling in Slovenia not by hitchhiking, you should try Prevoz.