Almost every town is America has an army of school buses for transporting our children.  Just imagine every family having to drive each of our kids to and from school each day.  That would be incredibly inefficient.

The American School Bus Council (ASBC) has some very compelling statistics to illustrate the benefits. Did you know there are almost half a million buses providing rides to over 26 million students every day?  Here are some more numbers that may surprise you:

Pay4Rides could achieve similar savings if 4 people shared a ride versus 4 individuals driving their own vehicles.  Even if just 2 people share, we still cut their consumption in half.  Multiply that by some of the 250 million drivers in the U.S. and we could save a lot of gas and money every day.

Now there are not the normal car pool issues with kids since they are all on the same schedule.  So yes it is harder to group rides for our daily commutes, but it is not impossible.  We just need to work together to develop creative solutions.

Maybe we can learn a lesson from our children.  Sharing rides while someone else drives is a smart solution to many of today’s problems.  Go ahead, do your homework and let me know what you learn.

photo credit: krispdk

Exchange points for drivers and riders

A transportation hub is defined as a location where traffic is exchanged across several modes of transport.  In our current environment passengers will switch between bus, railway and metro stations.  If every town were to establish a Passenger Energy Hub, it could greatly enhance the ability to share rides.

As a test, we could use exiting parking lots at malls and large shopping centers.  They typically have reserve parking area which is crowded on weekends, but not as heavily used during working hours.  Riders could be matched up with drivers if the parking lot was split into 4 quadrants (NW, NE, SE, SW).  First you would drive to the mall and park to get a ride or remain as a driver and pick up passengers.  Drivers could then drop you off at another hub that is closer to your destination.  A web site like this could be developed to allow people to gather and exchange daily commuting habits to organize groups for specific destinations.

As an example, if I am heading north on Route 95 and you are getting off at an earlier exit, I will stop at another hub on the way.  If you are going further than I am, I will drop you off at a hub near my exit and you can continue on.  There could be shuttles between hubs and from hubs to local stops.