This year, lets turn to the powerful concept of online ride-sharing. Why drive your own car when you could share the journey (reduce the costs, carbon footprint) with someone else
Liftshare pioneered this idea back in 1998. With more than 100,000 people sharing every day, liftshare is one of the most successful journey-matching services in the world.
With no VC funding to date, Liftshare has funded its rapid growth through selling white-labelled versions of the software to more than 1,000 major employers, such as Tesco and Sky.
In early 2013 liftshare launched the online personal travel planning tool, myPTP, which offers tailored journey-planning advice using all modes of transport, including park & ride and car sharing. Its a smart move as it encourages the use of all sustainable transport while leveraging liftshares major USP the UKs largest car-sharing database.
Its also enabled the firm to create an employer-to-employee tool, which cuts employee travel costs significantly.
To date, Liftshare has sold 70,000 travel plans to a mix of public and private organisations, generating 290,937 in revenue. Staff numbers are growing fast.