Commute is a mobile app designed to help you split your fuel costs when car-sharing. The idea has been created by University of Birmingham medical students Dan Chivers and Michael Trueman.
Dan & Michael's story:
Our idea for Commute first came on the way to Snowdonia for a hiking trip back in 2019, when my co-founder Dan made the simple proposition: 'There should be an easier way to work out how much people owe you for fuel money'. For the rest of the journey we exchanged ideas: widgets, gadgets, wallets, scanners. We settled on a unique journey identifier which we eventually incorporated into our app in the form of a QR code.
As medical students we were commuting every day in full cars to and from placements, unsure how to split the cost.
The organised ones amongst us created excel spreadsheets with each passenger, the number of journeys, and an estimate of how much they owed. This process, however, was laborious and inaccurate... we were tired of it.
How does it work?
Commute's 'Fuel Splitter' automatically calculates and tracks how much friends owe each other for fuel when car sharing. We use a unique journey identifier presented as a QR code to allow passengers to join a journey via a simple scan using their smartphone. We track the mileage of all users and aim to roll out a certified carbon offset initiative to keep our users driving carbon neutral.
"We wanted the calculations to be automatic and for keeping tabs to be simple. Asking friends for money for petrol need not be awkward, and drivers shouldn’t worry that they are for too much, or fear that they are losing money for driving."