Prevoz.org is a Slovenian online ridesharing community founded in 2004 that connects students who need rides with students who can offer rides to reduce transportation costs. It has grown to over 14,000 registered users who offer around 1,600 rides per week. By allowing ad-hoc car sharing, it provides a cheaper alternative to public transportation and has had a positive social impact by making student life more affordable and increasing transportation options. The organizers have learned that community sites can be successful without large budgets by leveraging open-source tools and word-of-mouth promotion within the user base.

1. Prevoz.org
Ridesharing in Slovenia
presented by jure@cuhalev.com
Sunday, March 14, 2010

2. Problem
• Lots of Slovenian students study away from
home in Ljubljana, Maribor or Koper
• They’re max 2h of drive away from home
or 2-3x that with public transport
• Ad-hoc car sharing since it’s 3x cheaper
than with public transport
Sunday, March 14, 2010

3. Solution
• Online community http://prevoz.org that
connect students with cars to students
who need a ride
• Built as a community project for students;
no fee for site usage for anyone
• Students just pay the money directly to
each other as they share a ride
Sunday, March 14, 2010

4. History and stats
• Founded in 2004
• 1600+ rides offered every week
• 14.000+ registered users
• Price range of a ride: 5-10 eur
• Popularity rises as fuel prices go up and
economy weakens
Sunday, March 14, 2010

5. Lessons learned
• Running community oriented sites online is
cheap with all the open-source and
students that are IT savvy
• Hosting is also free if you partner with
friendly NGO
• Word of mouth inside the community will
promote your project so you don’t need
advertising budget
• Community sites don’t need to make
money. It would ruin our site.
Sunday, March 14, 2010

6. Technology changes
• Running site for 5+ years thought us:
• hardware and software evolved faster
than our needs. Free speed and
productivity boost.
• Facebook became our #1 source of
traffic as people share links. Before that
we’ve seen hotmail, gmail and forums.
• OpenID makes auth easier for everyone
Sunday, March 14, 2010

7. Impact on society
• Prevoz.org is now a real alternative to
public transportation between cities
• Lots of people that commute, use it to
supplement their income now
• It makes living as a student cheaper as it’s
now more likely that you’ll get a ride as
there are more people offering one
(basically all offered rides are cheaper and
faster than train or a bus)
Sunday, March 14, 2010

8. Future
• As of November 2009, we’re offering cross-
border car sharing. It’s now possible to find
a ride to Austria, Italy, France, Serbia and
many others
• Next stage is creating translated site for
other countries as well as provide mobile
applications and a public API
Sunday, March 14, 2010