Recurring Rides on RideMates: The Easiest Way to Run a Weekly Carpool in 2026

If you drive the same route every week, the worst part of carpooling has always been the admin. Re-posting the ride every Monday. Re-confirming with passengers. Forgetting to post Friday and losing a seat that would have filled itself. Recurring rides on RideMates fix that. You set up your schedule once, and the app publishes a new ride for every weekday you've chosen, automatically, on a rolling basis.

This guide walks through how the feature works, who it's for, and a few practical tips for getting the most out of it.

What is a recurring ride?

A recurring ride is a single schedule that publishes itself as individual rides on the weekdays you pick. From a passenger's point of view nothing changes: each date is its own bookable ride with its own seats. From a driver's point of view, you do the work once.

Think of it as the rideshare version of a recurring calendar event. Pick the days. Pick a start date. Optionally pick an end date. RideMates handles the rest.

How to post a recurring ride (driver)

1. Tap Post Ride and fill in your route, time, seats, and price as usual.
2. Switch on Repeat. A weekday selector appears.
3. Pick the weekdays you drive. Any combination of Monday to Sunday works. Most commuters pick Mon to Fri. Sport coaches pick Sat. Hospital shift workers pick three specific days.
4. Choose a start date. This is the first occurrence. If you don't set an end date, the schedule keeps rolling forward.
5. Post. RideMates publishes the next 30 days of rides immediately, then rolls forward each day as time passes.

That's it. Each upcoming date is now searchable and bookable on the platform.

How to book a recurring ride (passenger)

From the passenger side, recurring rides feel like normal rides. You search for your route on the day you want, see the available seats, and book. If you commute the same way every weekday, just book Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday on the same driver's schedule. Many passengers do exactly this with the same driver for months at a time.

Drivers see all your bookings in one place, so they know who to expect each morning.

The 30-day rolling window

RideMates publishes recurring rides 30 days into the future at any given moment. Today, you'll see the next 30 days. Tomorrow, the schedule extends one more day forward. This keeps search results focused on the near term and stops the platform from filling up with rides nobody is going to think about for six months.

If you need to plan further ahead, just set a start date and let the window catch up. Your schedule will publish automatically as the date approaches.

Cancelling a single day vs cancelling the series

Plans change. RideMates handles two scenarios cleanly:

Cancel a single day

Working from home Friday? Got a doctor's appointment Wednesday? Cancel just that date from the My Rides screen. The rest of your schedule is untouched. RideMates won't recreate the cancelled date, even though it stays on your weekday template.

Cancel the whole series

Going on extended leave or changing jobs? Use Cancel Series. Before anything happens, RideMates shows you a preview: the total number of passenger bookings across every upcoming date, and the exact refund amount Stripe will return to those passengers. You confirm, and every future-dated ride is cancelled at once with refunds processed automatically.

Past dates are never affected. Drivers keep what they earned for trips that already ran.

The monthly check-in

One of the quiet problems with recurring schedules anywhere on the internet is stale data. Someone posts a weekly ride, life happens, and three months later the schedule is still publishing rides nobody intends to drive.

RideMates handles this with a monthly check-in. Every 30 days, if you haven't already touched the series, we send you a push notification: Still driving Sydney to Parramatta? Tap Keep going and your schedule rolls on. Tap Cancel series and everything future-dated is wound up.

It takes two seconds and keeps the platform clean for the passengers who depend on it.

Who is this for?

• Daily commuters who drive the same route to work every weekday.
• Sport parents and coaches running the same Saturday training trip.
• Shift workers with a fixed roster (e.g. Tue, Thu, Sun).
• University students heading to campus the same days each week.
• Long-distance commuters who do a weekly Sydney to Canberra or Melbourne to Geelong run.

Pricing tips for recurring drivers

1. Set the price at fuel-split, not retail. Recurring passengers are repeat customers. A fair fuel-split price keeps your seats full week after week.
2. Drivers keep 100% of the fare. If you set $15 per seat, you receive $15 per seat. RideMates charges a small service fee to passengers only.
3. Be consistent. Don't surge prices on Fridays. Recurring rides build trust, and trust comes from predictable pricing.
4. Factor in tolls. If your route uses Sydney's M2 or Melbourne's CityLink, build the toll into the per-seat price.

Quick FAQ

Can I edit a recurring ride after posting? You can cancel individual dates and you can cancel the whole series. To change the route or time, cancel the current series and post a new one.

What if I'm sick on a recurring date? Cancel that single date through My Rides. Passengers are refunded automatically and notified.

Do passengers get a discount for booking multiple days? Pricing is per seat per day. The savings come from skipping the bus, train, or solo drive, not from a multi-day discount.

What about public holidays? If your weekday template includes a public holiday and you don't want to drive that day, just cancel that single date. Easy.

Set yours up

If you drive the same route most weeks, recurring rides are the lowest-effort way to fill empty seats and offset fuel. Five minutes to set up, and the app does the publishing for you from there.

Download RideMates, tap Post Ride, switch on Repeat, and pick your days.