Employees are earning extra cash by sharing their commute with paying passengers

COMMUTERS can now make easy money on their way to work, and all they have to do is jump in the car and drive.

COMMUTERS are driving themselves to some extra cash simply by travelling to and from work.

The newest ride-sharing alternative to hit the market is Uber’s Driver Destinations which allows drivers to pick up passengers along their way from home to their workplace.

Thousands have jumped on board already including banking administrator John Tang who has a 45 minute commute each way from his home to work.

Looking to make some extra revenue on top of his fulltime job, Tang decided this was a simple way to do it.

John Tang says there is a 50 per cent chance he’ll pick up someone on the way home and it helps with parking and petrol costs. Picture: Rebecca Michael.

“There’s a 50 per cent chance I’ll pick up someone on the way home and it helps share the costs of parking and petrol,’’ he says.

“I get about 80 per cent of the fare so it’s pretty good, I like meeting different people and you always pick up a different person every time.”

He says the typical fare might be about $20 so he earns about $16.

Tang says passengers are on very similar routes to the one he takes so picking them up and dropping them off is simple.

Driver Destinations rolled out in Sydney and Melbourne last month and is set to go to Brisbane and Perth in the coming months with plans to introduce it in other capitals at a later stage.

Uber General Manager of Operations, Australia & New Zealand, Mike Abbott says the new ridesharing feature “allows Aussies to share rides on their morning and evening commute to work.”

“For example, a local resident from a particular suburb who works full time in the CBD, can now input their destination and they will only be matched with riders either heading to the CBD in the morning or heading back to a particular suburb in the evening,’’ he says.

He says it aims to reduce the cost of commuting to work for drivers, and give riders a safe and affordable way to get to and from work while also cutting the number of cars on the road.