Question 1

What is CarsPool.pk?

Accepted Answer

An app for sharing a car that was going your way anyway. Somebody is already driving your road, you ask them for a seat, and if they say yes you split what the trip costs between the people in the car. You pay in cash at the end of the ride. Nobody is hired to drive you anywhere.

Question 2

Is this the same as Uber or Careem?

Accepted Answer

No. In those apps you pay a fare and the company takes a commission out of it. Here no driver is hired at all. Somebody was making that trip for their own reasons — going to work, going home, driving to another city on a Friday morning — you are going with them, and the bill for the drive is shared. There is no meter, no shift and no target.

Question 3

Does CarsPool.pk take a cut of what I pay?

Accepted Answer

No. There is no commission on the ride. What you hand the driver is what the driver keeps, and nothing is deducted from it — the money never passes through the app in the first place.

Question 4

How is my share worked out?

Accepted Answer

For a ride across town it is a split, not a fare: what the trip costs is divided by the number of people in the car, and you see your share before you request the seat. A city-to-city trip works differently — the driver sets a price per seat, and that price is shown to you before you ask for it.

Question 5

Do I pay cash?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in the car, at the end of the ride. There is no wallet to top up, no card to add and no payment gateway anywhere in the app. That is deliberate: there are no card details of yours for anybody to lose, and nothing sitting in an account for anybody to take.

Question 6

Is there surge pricing?

Accepted Answer

No. Not in the rain, not at eight in the morning, not on a Friday evening. Nothing in the app multiplies your share because the road is busy.

Question 7

What does it cost me to cancel a seat?

Accepted Answer

Nothing. There is no cancellation fee, because there is no payment sitting in the app to take one from. Tell the driver as early as you can, so the seat can go to somebody else.

Question 8

Do I have to be going exactly where the driver is going?

Accepted Answer

No, and this is the part most people expect to work differently. You are matched to the driver's road, not to their start and end points. The place you want to get on and the place you want to get off both have to fall within a short distance of the route the driver has already saved, and your drop has to sit further along that route than your pickup. So you can join a car partway down its road and leave it partway down too — you just cannot book a seat that would carry you backwards.

Question 9

How do I get a seat?

Accepted Answer

You send a request, not a booking. The driver sees where you want to get on and where you want to get off, and says yes or no. Nobody joins a car without that yes. The seat only comes off the count inside the approval, under a lock, so two people can never be given the same one — that rule is enforced in the database rather than in the app.

Question 10

Can I choose where I get out?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You give your drop-off point when you request the seat, anywhere along the driver's route, and the driver's final stop is stated up front so you know where the ride ends. At the end both sides confirm the drop-off happened; if it did not, you raise a dispute instead of confirming, and a person reads it.

Question 11

Is the driver checked?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and by a person. A driver uploads their CNIC and their driving licence, and somebody on our team reads both. There is no selfie, no face match and no automated check against a government database. What that gives you is a named person with a licence, looked at by a human being, and we are not going to call it more than that.

Question 12

Can I see where the car is?

Accepted Answer

While the trip screen is open, yes — the map follows the car for as long as you are on that screen. Close it and the tracking stops. The app does not follow the car in the background, and we would rather tell you that than let you assume otherwise.

Question 13

What do I do if something goes wrong?

Accepted Answer

Email hello@carspool.pk with the date, the route and what happened. It is a real address and a person reads it. There is no support desk inside the app yet — Help and Support both say coming soon, and that is all they do — so email is the honest answer. If a ride did not end the way it should have, raise a dispute at the drop-off instead of confirming it. In an emergency, call the police on 15: we are an email address, not an emergency service.

Question 14

Which cities is it starting in?

Accepted Answer

Islamabad first, then Rawalpindi. That is where city rides begin. City-to-city trips already run across a wider list, which is the next question.

Question 15

Does it work between cities?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and it is live. Seven cities are set up: Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Haripur, Abbottabad, Mansehra, Lahore and Peshawar. Pick two of them and a day, and you see the seats drivers have already posted. Intercity is priced differently — the driver sets a price per seat rather than splitting the running cost, and whether the car is AC or non-AC is shown before you request. The rest is the same: you give your stop, the driver approves the seat, and you pay cash in the car.

Question 16

Which phones does the app run on?

Accepted Answer

Android, 7.0 and up. It is not on Google Play yet. The app is in English and Urdu, although a few screens still have English text on them that we have not translated.

What people ask before they share a car.

What CarsPool.pk is

What it costs, and how you pay

Finding a ride and getting a seat

Drivers, and if something goes wrong

Where it works, and what you need

Still not answered

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