It is the Klaxit application which provides access to the TAN carpooling service. - F.Brenon / 20Minutes

  • Semitan has launched its own urban carpooling service, called Covoit'tan.
  • A trip costs the price of a TAN ticket and entitles you to connections with buses and trams.
  • The contact with drivers is made via a mobile app.

Two months after its launch, the Semitan carpooling service, unprecedented on a French scale, is making a "very promising start", judges Olivier Le Grontec, general manager of the Nantes transport company. Just over 5,200 people are already registered as a driver or passenger via the Klaxit mobile application, provider of the device called Covoit'Tan. And a hundred trips per day are actually made on average (80 per day before December 31). Nothing impressive a priori, except that the objective to reach at the end of 2020 was 200 journeys per day. "We are therefore largely on schedule," notes the director.

"It's really a good start because urban carpooling has not really found its economic model, unlike inter-city carpooling popularized by Blablacar," adds Pascal Leroy, commercial director of Tan. We must now give the population time to take ownership of the system. We also carry out information work with companies which can be an important lever for development. Large companies are also preparing to join the service. "

For the price of a tram trip

The number of registered drivers is currently 1,500. La Tan estimates that it would need 5,000 for Covoit'tan to express its full potential. As for users who seek loopholes in the system in order to collect undue remuneration, TAN says it is "vigilant". “Klaxit makes route checks by looking, in particular, at the GPS data. It is present in other cities and therefore has some experience of deviant behavior ”, says Pascal Leroy.

As a reminder, passengers pay the equivalent of a tram trip (free with the unlimited subscription, 1.51 euros with the LiberTan pass and 2 euros for others), while motorists are paid 2 euros per person transported for a journey of at least two kilometers. The connection is made via the mobile application. Boarding and dropping off of travelers takes place at predefined stops. Payment for the device entitles you to the usual connections from the transport network. Use is, for the moment, limited to one return trip per day. But the frequency should be increased from March.

At the end of last week, the LR candidate for mayor of Nantes, Laurence Garnier, had estimated that it was necessary to be more ambitious in terms of carpooling. And promised, in the event of an election, to increase the remuneration of the Covoit'tan driver from 2 to 3 euros in order to further motivate motorists.

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  • Carpooling
  • Semitan
  • Public transport
  • Nantes