Originally Posted by
tandempower
Many people have their private vehicles professionally repaired and maintained.
The insurance is another story. If insurers block people from participating in ride-sharing networks by making the insurance costs of doing so cost-prohibitive, then they will have effectively colluded with other interests to push people into individual car ownership.
At that point, the question will be why the insurance companies give such low rates to individuals who own and operate their own cars without ride-sharing.
It shouldn't matter whether the same car changes hands and carries multiple passengers or just one, or rather it should be more affordable to use a single vehicle for multiple passengers than for each passenger to own, maintain, and insure their own vehicle.
If individual/unshared ownership/driving would be more affordable than vehicle/ride-sharing, there's something fishy going on.
As soon as you start using your vehicle for business the insurance costs go up.
Also did you factor in fuel?
The average trip around here is about 20 km (and takes about 30-45 min). 10 trips is 200 km. If the vehicle does 600 km between fill-ups you'll be refuelling every 3 days. So say it costs $60 to fill (low estimate ...I think ours is about $80) that's $600 / month.
So you've got $600 / month car payments + $600 / month fuel + probably about $250 / month insurance.
Plus you're putting on 200 km / day or 6000 km per month so your wear and tear is high. Oh and that doesn't include empty trips where you've got to locate the car and move it to a more convenient location.
Not to mention the wear and tear on yourself. If you drive those 10 trips that's at least 5 hours a day every day.
At $2/trip, that's $20/day or $600/month and doesn't even begin to cover the costs.
If we assume that the costs are:
600 + 600 + 250 = $1450 plus maintenance and repairs which might run, say, $50/month (a very low number grabbed out of the air) = $1500.
$1500 in expenses means you'd have to make $50/day just to cover expenses. If you're estimating 10 trips, you'd need to charge at least $5/trip to break even.
For it to be worthwhile as a part-time job (5 hours a day), I'd want to make a minimum of $20/hour take-home or $100 per day. So that means to be worthwhile, I'd have to make $150/day. At 10 trips, that's $15/trip.
But we've got to include tax too ... and the fact that there might not be 10 trips a day ... some days there might not be any ... and the fact that I might want to take a couple days off each week, and all of a sudden $20 or $25/trip doesn't seem unreasonable. Plus if you've got to drive at weird hours of the night or in peak hour or something and your 30 minute trip becomes an hour ... maybe you'd want to charge $30 or $35 to cover the inconvenience.
And voila ... you've got yourself a taxi or Uber service.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you have a Zip Car service in your area? If so ... it sounds a lot like what you're describing. Give it a try and report back!!
https://www.zipcar.com/cities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The way a ride/drive share thing might be able to work is if it is done on a very small scale ... like a large family or a few neighbours. Where people know each other and don't mind if another member of the group drives one of the cars and throws in some cash for expenses now and then.
My ex-husband's family was a large family with several cars. They did this sort of thing.
So this you can start doing on your own. Talk to your neighbours and see what you can set up!! 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~