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Overview
Frequently Asked Questions
Geocoding
Entering your Geographical Coordinates
Sending Emails
Sending/Receiving SMS messages on your cellular phone or pager
Viewing your matches



Overview

Carpoolworld.com looks at exactly where everyone lives and works to find perfect carpool matches for everyone. Our exclusive TripMatchTM; process uses advanced computing technology to make perfect carpool matching easy, fast and precise. Please read on for more carpool information.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I get started?

A: It's as easy as 1-2-3:

  1. Start by choosing your traveler name and password on the login page You can also take a look at a preview of the trip form that you will need to fill out to get your trip listed and matched in our system.

  2. Confirm your email address (we will send you an email with a Registration Confirmation Code that you will need to enter on our web site to confirm your trip).

  3. View your matches and contact the other travelers by phone or email. See a sample matchlist

Q: How do I delete my trip?

A: You can change the status of your trip once you are logged in. At the bottom of your My Trip page, you will see your status, change your status from Active to:
  • Passive (if you would like to re-activate at a later time, other travelers will not see your profile in their matches).
  • Deleted (we purge trips flagged for deletion 30 days after your last log in date and other travelers will not see your profile in their matches).

There is more information in our Safety, Privacy, and Terms of Use information.


Q: Why isn't everyone using carpoolworld.com?

A: Because they don't know about us yet. Maybe gasoline, highway tolls and parking are not expensive enough yet or incentives are not appealing enough.

Q: How can I tell if there are other travelers with trips similar to my own before I register my trip information?

A: You will not know for sure until you enter your trip information and register your trip. We post summary information about trips around the world but that will only give you a broad indication of our current coverage. The best way to find out is to enter your trip and see your personal matchlist. If you are the first traveler in your area, then other travelers in your area will see your trip when they register. You are also free to delete your trip at any time at your convenience.

Q: Where is my Registration Confirmation Code?

A: Whenever you enter or change your email address, we send a confirmation email immediately, containing a 3-digit Registraion Confirmation Code, to the email address you entered with your trip information. Check your email for that confirmation email, it should be there as soon as you do your next email 'send/receive session'. If you don't receive it, then there are two possiblities: One, you did not enter your correct email address into our system. Go back into the system, correct your email address, and check again for the confirmation email. Two, a spam filter on your computer or on your network has re-directed our confirmation email to a spam folder. In this case, or if you have any other problem with the confirmation email, please just send us an email and we will gladly help you further.

Q: Why do I see too many matches, or no matches at all?

A: First, make sure your search radius settings are good. We set them automatically based on your trip distance, but you may need to adjust them. It's easy to do it yourself, but just send us an email if you're not sure and we'll be happy to help. It's also possible that there are no other travelers in the system at this time with trips similar to your own. Please don't get discouraged, our database grows every day. If you live in a major suburban area of a major city, you will probably have a few decent matches already. But in other areas, you may be one of the first, or indeed the first, traveler in our system. Your trip will be followed by others, and they will see you when they join up. To speed up the process, tape up a sign on the public bulletin board in your company. Or tape signs at the bus stop or train station. You can even earn commissions by signing up employers in your community for our Carpool Groups service.

Q: Why do I see matches that are no good for me?

A: Our system matches trips automatically using the home/origin and work/destination locations that you and the other travelers have provided. If you think there is something wrong, send us an email and we will verify your coordinates. We set the default search radii automatically. Our system logically selects the best potential matches in your area, and sorts them by the criteria you select. You should be able to contact the first few matches to follow up to see if you can arrange a carpool.

Q: Is there a way to search along my route for someone I could pick up?

A: On the matches page, turn on the distance filters and sorting. Adjust the origin, ending, trip, and detour distance ranges to increase or decrease the scope of your match search. This way you will bring in additional potential travelers.

Q: How can I change my email address?

A: Once you are logged in, click on 'My Trip' and change your email address. A new confirmation email with a secret code will be sent to your new email address. Retrieve the code from your email inbox and type it in to the confirmation screen, or click on the link provided in the new email to confirm your new email address.

Q: There's a natural boundary (river, park, train tracks, highway, etc.) in my area - how does your system know not to try to match me with people on the other side of the boundary?

A: Our system works by Earth geometry only, it does not know where the natural boundaries are. There are good reasons why we do is this way: First of all, a natural boundary for a car, such as a park or a one-way street, may not be a problem for commuters who will be walking to their carpool. Another example is that your back-door neighbor could have a long way to drive to your house, but he could also just walk across the back yards. Downtown, you can walk through building complexes but cars have to drive around. So we need to match potential carpool partners based on 'walking closeness' between their homes or places of work. You need the road network to plan your driving directions, to estimate the travel time, or to find alternate routes, etc. But to match carpool partners, you need to know how close together the homes are, and how close together the places of work are. And you need to perform the geometric calculations efficiently over your entire database for each search, a process that we pioneered and for which we have been granted a U.S. patent. Still, if you do feel that there is some significant topographic issue in your area, just put a note in your description box to advise the other travelers and that will take care of it.

I have other questions

Please take a look in the carpoolworld forum if you have other questions or wish to post a comment (you have to log in, only registered users are allowed to post). Or please contact us.


Geocoding

Carpoolworld matches trips by using the exact latitude and longitude coordinates of the trip origins and destinations. Every point on Earth has its own unique latitude and longitude coordinates, and these coordinates never change. Latitude says how far North or South a place is from the Equator, and Longitude says how far East or West a place is from Greenwich (London), England. Our Links page has more information about how latitude and longitude work.

Translating a street address into latitude and longitude coordinates is called 'geocoding'. Carpoolworld.com automatically geocodes street addresses in the following countries:

  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • Denmark
  • Finland (Uusimaa, Hame and Pirkanmaa regions)
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece (Athens only)
  • Hong Kong
  • Italy
  • Luxembourg
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Norway
  • Portugal
  • Puerto Rico
  • Singapore
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Taiwan
  • United Kingdom
  • United States of America

Everywhere else on Earth, we geocode based on your city and country names, and you can also enter your own latitude and longitude coordinates directly.

Entering your Geographical Coordinates

Our system will find the latitude and longitude coordinates for your home/origin and work/destination addresses automatically in all of the countries listed above. But if you want to find and enter your own geographic coordinates, please note the following:

Most Internet map sites show latitude and longitude in the user-friendly decimal format, instead of the traditional 'degrees-minutes-seconds' format. We use the decimal format also.

You will see that some available geocoding information is very precise. The latitude and longitude numbers can go to 6 positions after the decimal point, which is a precision of about 5 inches, or 11 centimeters! When we calculate the similarities between trips we round off to 3 digits after the decimal point, which is precise to about the nearest yard, or meter, which is extremely precise for our needs.

All points in North America have a negative longitude (negative numbers indicate that a place is west of Greenwich, England), and a positive latitude (positive numbers indicate that a place is north of the Equator). So if you live in the U.S. or Canada, make sure your longitude numbers include the minus sign. Similarly, if you live in Australia or New Zealand, remember that your longitude coordinates are always positive, and your latitude coordinates are always negative.

Our latitude and longitude data entry windows expect the numbers to be in the decimal format,
where latitude is between -90.000000 and 90.000000
and longitude is between -180.000000 and 180.000000.
We strip out any non-numeric characters. You can use your browser's 'copy-and-paste' tool to copy the latitude and longitude coordinates for your home and place of work from an Internet map site into our data entry windows. You'll have a latitude and longitude for your home and a latitude and longitude for your place of work, so that will be four copy-and-paste actions altogether. If you use some other method for getting your latitude and longitude, such as using an automotive or hand-help GPS receiver, just type the numbers into the data entry windows. Remember that Western longitudes (as in all of the U.S. and Canada) need a minus sign in front of the longitude number, and the latitude number is positive (you do not need the plus sign). In Australia and New Zealand, longitude is positive and latitude is negative. In Europe, the latitude is always positive, but the longitude can be positive or negative depending on whether your are East or West of Greenwich (London), England.

Viewing your matches

After you put in your coordinates, click the button to find matches. View a sample match page here The patented TripMatchTM process then shows you the other trips in the database that are the most similar to yours, ranked starting with the closest, as follows: The system adds the distance between your home/origin and the matched home/origin to the distance between your place of work/destination and the matched place of work/destination, to calculate the total distance difference between the trips. As a result, when you look down the list of matches, you may see people whose trips start a little closer to yours but end farther away, or maybe start a little farther away but end closer. We call this calculation the 'difference between trips'. We also calculate 'your detour' and 'their detour', which show you how far out of the way you or the other traveler would need to go for you to pick him up and drop him off, or for him to pick you up and drop you off. We let you re-sort the list by any of these calculations. If you are the first person in your area using this system, you may not see many (or even any) matches yet. If so, just try to tell other people about us! Here's a poster.

Sending Emails

When you send your emails, tell the other traveler that you are looking for a carpool, and tell him/her approximately where you work, and ask for a response. In fact we provide standard text so you will just need to click 'send'. Please see our Safety, Privacy, and Terms of Use Agreement page for additional information.


Sending/Receiving SMS messages on your cellular phone or pager

When you create your trip, you have the option of specifying your SMS address. This address is composed of your 10 digit cell phone number or pager number and cellular phone company domain name (see below for a list of commonly used suppliers). This will allow you to receive text messages (up to 150 characters) on your cell phone or pager and to send messages to other travelers that have provided their SMS addresses. This address is not shown to the other travelers. Some cell phone providers charge additional fees for messages received and/or sent.

3 River Wireless

@sms.3rivers.net

ACS Wireless

@paging.acswireless.com

Advantage Communications

@advantagepaging.com

Airtouch Pagers

@myairmail.com

Airtouch Pagers

@alphapage.airtouch.com

Airtouch Pagers

@airtouch.net

Airtouch Pagers

@airtouchpaging.com

Alltel

@alltelmessage.com

Alltel PCS

@message.alltel.com

AlphNow

@alphanow.net

Ameritech Clearpath

@clearpath.acswireless.com

Ameritech Paging

@paging.acswireless.com

Ameritech Paging

@pageapi.com

Andhra Pradesh Airtel

@airtelap.com

Arch Pagers (PageNet)

@archwireless.net

Arch Pagers (PageNet)

@epage.arch.com

Arch Pagers (PageNet)

@archwireless.net

AT&T PCS

@mobile.att.net

AT&T Pocketnet PCS

@dpcs.mobile.att.net

BeeLine GSM

@sms.beemail.ru

Beepwear

@beepwear.net

Bell Atlantic

@message.bam.com

Bell Canada

@txt.bellmobility.ca

Bell Canada

@bellmobility.ca

Bell Mobility

@txt.bellmobility.ca

Bell South

@sms.bellsouth.com

Bell South

@wireless.bellsouth.com

Bell South

@blsdcs.net

Bell South

@bellsouth.cl

Bell South (Blackberry)

@bellsouthtips.com

Bell South Mobility

@blsdcs.net

Bluegrass Cellular

@sms.bluecell.com

BPL mobile

@bplmobile.com

Carolina Mobile Communications

@cmcpaging.com

Cellular One

@mobile.celloneusa.com

Cellular One

@cellularone.txtmsg.com

Cellular One

@cellularone.textmsg.com

Cellular One

@cell1.textmsg.com

Cellular One

@message.cellone-sf.com

Cellular One

@sbcemail.com

Cellular One East Coast

@phone.cellone.net

Cellular One PCS

@paging.cellone-sf.com

Cellular One South West

@swmsg.com

Cellular South

@csouth1.com

Central Vermont Communications

@cvcpaging.com

CenturyTel

@messaging.centurytel.net

Chennai RPG Cellular

@rpgmail.net

Chennai Skycell / Airtel

@airtelchennai.com

Cincinnati Bell

@mobile.att.net

Cingular Wirelss

@mycingular.textmsg.com

Cingular Wirelss

@mobile.mycingular.com

Cingular Wirelss

@mobile.mycingular.net

Clearnet

@msg.clearnet.com

Comcast

@comcastpcs.textmsg.com

Communication Specialist Companies

@pager.comspeco.com

Communication Specialists

@pageme.comspeco.net

Comviq

@sms.comviq.se

Cook Paging

@cookmail.com

Corr Wireless Communications

@corrwireless.net

Cricket

@mms.mycricket.com

Delhi Aritel

@airtelmail.com

Delhi Hutch

@delhi.hutch.co.in

Digi-Page / Page Kansas

@page.hit.net

Dobson Cellular Systems

@mobile.dobson.net

Dobson-Alex Wireless / Dobson-Cellular One

@mobile.cellularone.com

DT T-Mobile

@t-mobile-sms.de

Edge Wireless

@sms.edgewireless.com

EMT

@sms.emt.ee

Escotel

@escotelmobile.com

Fido

@fido.ca

GCS Paging

@webpager.us

Goa BPLMobil

@bplmobile.com

Golden Telecom

@sms.goldentele.com

GrayLink / Porta-Phone

@epage.porta-phone.com

GTE

@airmessage.net

GTE

@gte.pagegate.net

GTE

@messagealert.com

Gujarat Celforce

@celforce.com

Houston Cellular

@text.houstoncellular.net

Idea Cellular

@ideacellular.net

Infopage Systems

@page.infopagesystems.com

Inland Cellular Telephone

@inlandlink.com

JSM Tele-Page

@jsmtel.com

Kerala Escotel

@escotelmobile.com

Kolkata Airtel

@airtelkol.com

Kyivstar

@smsmail.lmt.lv

Lauttamus Communication

@e-page.net

LMT

@smsmail.lmt.lv

Maharashtra BPL Mobile

@bplmobile.com

Maharashtra Idea Cellular

@ideacellular.net

Manitoba Telecom Systems

@text.mtsmobility.com

MCI

@pagemci.com

MCI Phone

@mci.com

Meteor

@mymeteor.ie

Metro PCS

@mymetropcs.com

Metro PCS

@metorpcs.sms.us

Metrocall

@page.metrocall.com

Metrocall 2-way

@my2way.com

Microcell

@fido.ca

Midwest Wireless

@clearlydigital.com

MiWorld

@m1.com.sg

Mobilecom PA

@page.mobilcom.net

Mobilecomm

@mobilecomm.net

Mobileone

@m1.com.sg

Mobilfone

@page.mobilfone.com

Mobility Bermuda

@ml.bm

Mobistar Belgium

@mobistar.be

Mobitel Tanzania

@sms.co.tz

Mobtel Srbija

@mobtel.co.yu

Morris Wireless

@beepone.net

Motient

@isp.com

Movistar

@correo.movistar.net

Mumbai BPL Mobile

@bplmobile.com

Mumbai Orange

@orangemail.co.in

NBTel

@wirefree.informe.ca

Netcom

@sms.netcom.no

Nextel

@messaging.nextel.com

Nextel

@page.nextel.com

Nextel

@nextel.com.br

NPI Wireless

@npiwireless.com

Ntelos

@pcs.ntelos.com

Omnipoint

@omnipoint.com

Omnipoint

@omnipointpcs.com

One Connect Austria

@onemail.at

OnlineBeep

@onlinebeep.net

Optus Mobile

@optusmobile.com.au

Orange

@orange.net

Orange - NL / Dutchtone

@sms.orange.nl

Orange Mumbai

@orangemail.co.in

Oskar

@mujoskar.cz

P&T Luxembourg

@sms.luxgsm.lu

Pacific Bell

@pacbellpcs.net

PageMart

@pagemart.net

PageMart Advanced /2way

@airmessage.net

PageMart Canada

@pmcl.net

PageNet Canada

@pagegate.pagenet.ca

PageOne NorthWest

10digit@page1nw.com

PCS One

@pcsone.net

Pioneer / Enid Cellular

@msg.pioneerenidcellular.com

PlusGSM

@text.plusgsm.pl

Pondicherry BPL Mobile

@bplmobile.com

Powertel

@voicestream.net

Price Communications

@mobilecell1se.com

Primco

@primeco@textmsg.com

Primtel

@sms.primtel.ru

ProPage

7digit@page.propage.net

Public Service Cellular

@sms.pscel.com

Qwest

@qwestmp.com

RAM Page

@ram-page.com

Rogers AT&T Wireless

@pcs.rogers.com

Rogers Canada

@pcs.rogers.com

Safaricom

@safaricomsms.com

Satelindo GSM

@satelindogsm.com

Satellink

10digitpagernumber.pageme@satellink.net

SBC Ameritech Paging

@paging.acswireless.com

SCS-900

@scs-900.ru

SFR France

@sfr.fr

Simple Freedom

@text.simplefreedom.net

Skytel Pagers

@skytel.com

Skytel Pagers

@email.skytel.com

Smart Telecom

@mysmart.mymobile.ph

Southern LINC

@page.southernlinc.com

Southwestern Bell

@email.swbw.com

Sprint

@sprintpaging.com

Sprint PCS

@messaging.sprintpcs.com

ST Paging

@page.stpaging.com

SunCom

@tms.suncom.com

SunCom

@suncom1.com

Sunrise Mobile

@mysunrise.ch

Sunrise Mobile

@freesurf.ch

Surewest Communicaitons

@mobile.surewest.com

Swisscom

@bluewin.ch

T-Mobile

@tmomail.net

T-Mobile

@voicestream.net

T-Mobile Austria

@sms.t-mobile.at

T-Mobile Germany

@t-d1-sms.de

T-Mobile UK

@t-mobile.uk.net

Tamil Nadu BPL Mobile

@bplmobile.com

Tele2 Latvia

@sms.tele2.lv

Telefonica Movistar

@movistar.net

Telenor

@mobilpost.no

Teletouch

@pageme.teletouch.com

Telia Denmark

@gsm1800.telia.dk

Telus

@msg.telus.com

The Indiana Paging Co

last4digits@pager.tdspager.com

TIM

@timnet.com

Triton

@tms.suncom.com

TSR Wireless

@alphame.com

TSR Wireless

@beep.com

Unicel

@utext.com

Uraltel

@sms.uraltel.ru

US Cellular

@email.uscc.net

US Cellular

@uscc.textmsg.com

US West

@uswestdatamail.com

Uttar Pradesh Escotel

@escotelmobile.com

Verizon Pagers

@myairmail.com

Verizon PCS

@vtext.com

Verizon PCS

@myvzw.com

Vessotel

@pager.irkutsk.ru

Virgin Mobile

@vmobl.com

Vodafone Italy

@sms.vodafone.it

Vodafone Japan

@c.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan

@h.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan

@t.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Spain

@vodafone.es

Vodafone UK

@vodafone.net

VoiceStream / T-Mobile

@voicestream.net

WebLink Wiereless

@airmessage.net

WebLink Wiereless

@pagemart.net

West Central Wireless

@sms.wcc.net

Western Wireless

@cellularonewest.com

Wyndtell

@wyndtell.com

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