Driving alone in the city'€™s frustratingly gridlocked traffic is certainly tedious. But has it ever occurred to you to give a ride to a total stranger you only '€œmet'€ on the Internet, just so you can have someone to chat with?

It may sound weird, or creepy, to let someone you have never actually met, climb into your vehicle. But Andreas Aditya Swasti, 26, would beg to differ.

Andreas established a community on Twitter called Nebengers in December 2011 to allow commuters with vacant seats on or in their vehicles to offer rides to those people without cars or bikes who need to travel in the same direction.

Nebengers, derived from the Indonesian word nebeng meaning free ride, is what Andreas calls a '€œvirtual terminal'€.

The aim was simple: to help the city reduce its traffic jams by having groups of people traveling together; thereby reduce the number of vehicles on the roads, and also giving people a chance to make new friends.

'€œOne day, I saw a crowd of people waiting for a bus, while I had several vacant seats in my car. I asked myself, why shouldn'€™t some of them join me if they'€™re heading for the same direction?'€ Andreas told The Jakarta Post recently.

'€œI can make new friends and help reduce the number of cars on the roads. Also, I knew I wasn'€™t the only person riding alone,'€ he added.

Andreas'€™ friends, Putri Sentanu and Maria Stefany Putri, helped him to develop his idea.

Through their Twitter account @nebengers, people with vacant seats in their vehicles can offer free rides to people, while those looking for transportation to particular destinations can do the same. Currently, more than 18,700 people follow the account and hundreds of '€œfree ride transactions'€ took place every day, Andreas said.

Also, as of March, Nebengers have more than 2,200 registered members on their list, which is available at nebengers.com.

The members are from Greater Jakarta and Bandung, West Java.

To ensure the safety of members, the community also utilizes Twitter. Andreas believes that social media can help to encourage people to trust others, even if they have never met them before.

'€œIf there are two Twitter accounts you don'€™t know and one has more than 500 followers, while the other has only 10 followers, which one would you trust?'€ he questioned.

'€œBy monitoring the number and composition of account followers and how information on a Twitter account is communicated, we can better understand which ones we can trust and which ones we can'€™t,'€ he pointed out.

He said the Nebengers account acted as a third party to help mediate transactions before making the details public.

Andreas acknowledged that offering and asking for free rides can be perceived as negative.

Therefore, the community is currently trying to develop social awareness about the many '€œgood people'€ who are willing to offer safe free rides.

In order to pursue this, Andreas conducts seminars and discussions at schools and campuses.

This year, the community is studying people'€™s mind-sets and transportation in other big cities before expanding the service nationwide.

The list of offers is also accessible via a free application available for smartphones with Android, iOS and BlackBerry 10 platforms.

'€œThe first-generation application is only based on what we post on Twitter. We are in the process of building a second-generation version with more features,'€ Andreas told the Post.

Besides online talks, Andreas often conducts '€œoffline'€ meetings with the community'€™s members, to get to know one another better and build trust.

'€œWith these meetings, we can also get in touch directly with the people offering and taking rides and build a network,'€ he said. '€œWe unite the people who usually only connect in cyberspace.'€

Andreas is looking forward to conducting more events with the members as well as launching a campaign to raise awareness and a willingness among people to share rides so as to develop a spirit of sharing among Jakartans, whom he says are generally pragmatic and individualistic.

An upcoming meeting is due to be conducted by members from Bekasi, who plan to hold it in Puncak, Bogor, but a date has yet to be decided.

With the number of participants increasing, Andreas'€™ ultimate objective is to create a smart crowd.

The '€œsmart crowd'€ concept, Andreas says, is a network of people connected to one another who have a similar mind-set in terms of wanting to reduce traffic jams and promote a spirit of sharing.

'€œLet'€™s say there are 5 million people commuting every day in the city. Imagine what would happen if they were all connected?'€

Andreas explained the many reasons that triggered Nebengers members to become part of the community.

'€œTo get new friends, it'€™s fun. Some also seek friends or dates,'€ he said with a laugh, adding that two of its members were due to get married this year after first meeting during a ride mediated by Nebengers.

Nebengers'€™ member Gamma Quieto Riantori said that verifying the credibility of a person through Twitter was reliable.

'€œThat'€™s why members are advised to post their route an hour beforehand, to allow time for responders to scrutinize the person'€™s account first,'€ the @64MMA Twitter account owner said.

The fact that members were mostly open-minded made it easy for those who had only just met to create a bond, he said.

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