NEW DELHI: Uber India wants to be allowed to incentivise people to use their cars on the cab aggregator's platform to share rides with others, an option prohibited by the Motor Vehicles Act Uber says ride-sharing will help reduce air pollution in New Delhi by cutting the number of duplicate journeys. Vehicle emissions cause 30% of the pollution in the capital, according to a report by the Observer Research Foundation. If private car owners are able to register with Uber as drivers, all they have to do is input the time of their travel and route so that people in the vicinity going in same direction can hitch a ride."We would like to work with the government to make this a reality," Shweta Rajpal Kohli, Uber's India policy head, told ET.Ride-sharing is different from Uber's carpooling service, which involves drivers of vehicles with commercial licences. "Services like Uber can instantly match passengers headed in the same direction at the same time, thereby reducing the number of duplicate journeys," said Kohli. "We would therefore be keen to support the government in every way possible and help use carpooling and ride-sharing as solutions to address the rising pollution and congestion in the city."Uber experimented with ride sharing in Bengaluru and in New Delhi in the first phase of the oddeven vehicle-plying rule last year, but the model known as UberCommute did not find many takers.The Motor Vehicles Act doesn't allow private vehicles to be used for hire or rewards.According to sources, initial conversations with the Delhi government on the issue have been positive. Making a case for ride-sharing, ORF notes that only 5% of the Indian population can afford cars, which remain unused for 90% of the time. The average occupancy of a car is 28%, which means a vehicle with the capacity to seat four people does not carry more than one person currently, on average. Uber claims its carpooling option in Delhi saved 1.2 crore vehicle miles of travel and over 3 lakh litres of fuel, besides cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 706,000 kg, between Dec 2015 and Sept 2016.