How Movability, Clean Air Force of Central Texas, and TEF Are Building Community and Reshaping Student Commutes
Sometimes the most effective transit solution isn’t a new bus route or a new piece of infrastructure — it’s connecting neighbors who are already making the same trip. The school commute is a twice-daily chore with long drop-off lines and stop-and-go traffic for many Central Texas families. Multiply that by thousands of households, and it adds up to a significant share of neighborhood traffic and emissions. Movability designed and launched SchoolPool as a creative carpool solution to school commute challenges, and year two of the program shows it’s working.
Transit Empowerment Fund (TEF) awarded Movability and Clean Air Force of Central Texas demonstration grants in 2024 ($50,000) and 2025 ($56,000) to kick-off year 1 and year 2 of the SchoolPool pilot. SchoolPool runs through a matching platform that connects families across a school community to form carpool, walkpool, and bikepool groups, with a secure, easy-to-use web and mobile app for organizing shared rides.
The results speak for themselves. Year two wrapped at seven Central Texas schools — public, private, and charter — with nearly 1,000 parents signed up. A spring intercept survey shows the program isn’t just growing, it’s converting sign-ups into new mobility habits:
- Over a quarter of families surveyed are now carpooling
- 28% say SchoolPool is the reason why
- 76% of this year’s carpoolers weren’t carpooling last year
- 69% of carpoolers are doing it daily
A new commute culture is emerging, with carpooling habits set to outlast the pilot phase.
What We’re Still Learning
The survey revealed most carpooling is still happening off-platform. 42% of respondents said they arranged trips on their own, while only 4.4% completed trips through the app itself. When asked what would get them to carpool more, families pointed to two things: greater awareness of the program, and financial incentives. Those findings are now shaping Movability’s next steps.
A Bright Spot: Ann Richards School
Movability applied lessons from year one to sharpen program design. A “speed networking” event for parents at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders drove 101 platform registrations and 68 completed trips as of March 2026, one of the strongest engagement results of any participating campus.
“Transit is just one piece of the puzzle,” said Lonny Stern, Movability’s former Executive Director. “If we truly want to tackle congestion, we must meet people where they are. Programs like SchoolPool allow us to reach a broader community — not just central Austin, but the entire six-county region — making a real impact.”
What’s Next
SchoolPool is entering its final pilot phase, and Movability is building on what’s working. This fall, the program moves to a new platform, ConnectSmart Mobility, integrating trip planning, rewards, and carpool matching to better meet families’ needs around awareness and incentives. Movability is also piloting a bike pool program at General Marshall Middle School, to test whether some school communities are a better fit for a bike bus than a carpool — and, with momentum building at Ann Richards, expanding into new middle and high schools that haven’t participated yet.
The goal for this final phase is to understand: (1) what works, (2) for which communities, and (3) under what conditions. Learn more at movabilitytx.org/schoolpool.