Developing the Carpool System for the Students Commuting to Sart - Tilman

The actual climate change problem has become everyone concern. With the purpose of saving the planet, any initiative is welcomed. The environment pollution in dioxide Carbone (CO2), noise, chemical, etc. is consequence to many sources: industries (power, manufacturing, chemical, etc.), household activities, cars, airplanes, etc. The car comes to the second place just after the industry (Oliver et al., 2013; Toress et al., 2011). Logically, diminishing the number of cars on the road must have a great impact on the reduction of CO2 production.
<br />The carpooling is one of the policies in travel/ transportation demand management (TDM) which has recently gained great success and good reputation in fighting CO2 emission and toxic gases like PM10 and NOx, congestion and noise nuisance from cars by reducing the number of cars on the road. This reduction is the result of sharing rides for commuters in their different trips (Cools et al., 2013; Vanoutrive, 2012). The carpooling service at Sart Tilman (ST) is provided by Taxistop, the transportation operation which has its office, Carpoolplaza, in Walloon province. Carpoolplaza is a free online database where commuters can find a match (Toress et al., 2011). This online platform does not take any responsibility in commuter trips and it does not pay any particular attention on students’ mobility. Using programming software (Matlab), spatial data analysis software (ArcGIS) and statistic data analysis (SAS), this thesis models the carpool system that fit ST students’ community.
<br />The carpool groups of five commuters each were produced and mapped respectively to their specific quarters. The factors including gender, financial need and time saving was identified to encourage carpooling at ST. These results are justified by the change of the community behaviour, especially the scientific community, which understands their responsibility to protect the environment and fights the climate change by reducing single occupancy vehicles (SOV) use, consequently CO2 emission, and shift to the ride sharing mode.