My kids love getting the mail this time of year and then fighting over who gets to open the envelopes holding the Christmas cards.  They smile while looking at pictures of friends they see all the time and some they have never met (yes, Mom and Dad’s old friends have kids too).  These cards are a wonderful reminder of all the friends and family in our lives.  We tape them on the walls to enjoy them the entire holiday season.

So people all across the country pick out thier cards, address each one and drop them in the mail.  Then what?  Did you ever think about how the mail actually travels?  Can you imagine having to hand deliver each one?  Think about the incredible inefficiency of having to drive to the house or apartment of each family.  Without the post office, you would have to deliver them yourself or use a high priced courier service to carry each card to their specific destination.

On a typical day, the US Post Office will handle around 700 million pieces of mail, but some days in December the volume can exceed 900 million.  This can only be accomplished with a well designed system that continually improves over time.

Starting up an idea like Passenger Energy must be similar to establishing the first post office.  Where do we begin?  Just sharing one or two rides will not have a significant impact, but if a paid ride sharing system was created and improved over time then we would really have something.  The potential efficiency of 250 million drivers sharing unused passenger capacity with millions of riders could solve many of today’s problems.

How a letter travels is analogous to each driver traveling their own unique route instead of traveling together for efficiency.  Today most of us are using something similar to a high priced courier service where each individual travels non stop directly from point A to Point B.  Passenger Energy would enable us to take advantage of lower priced delivery options.

If you look at the major shipping carriers, they include:

• US Postal Service – handles more than 44% of the daily mail volume

• UPS – the primary package carrier for Ground delivery

• FedEx – “When it absolutely has to be there overnight”

• DHL/Airborne – door-to-door express service for world wide delivery

• Courier Services – special services and same day rush deliveries

Can you imagine sending every piece of mail via Courier Services instead of all the other options?  The cost and inefficiency would be staggering.  Can we somehow apply the genius of our shipping systems to the problem of commuter traffic?

photo credit: divemasterking2000

More than 700 million pieces of mail are sorted and delivered by the US Postal Service each delivery day, so how does a letter travel?

1. Deposit a letter in a collection box
2. Mail is collected at the local post office and sent to a mail processing plant
3. At the processing plant, a machine rapidly separates by shape and applies a postmark
4. Each letter is then identified with a barcode representing the address
5. Mail is then further sorted into ranges of zip codes
6. The sorted mail is then placed on airplanes to move across the country
7. Once at the destination airport, it is moved to another mail processing plant that splits the mail to the branch or post office that will deliver the letter
8. The mail is then further split to individual carriers are sorted in delivery order
9. Finally the mail carrier makes the delivery

If people could travel the bulk of their trip with ride sharing, then mass transit could cover the last 10-20%.  We just need an efficient way to group rides and allow passengers to travel together for a greatly improved transportation system.

Imagine you are heading to NYC.  You see someone waiting at a stop and you provide them with a ride.  It does not cost you anything.  They get a faster ride (no stops) and pay you less than a typical bus ride.  You both win and so does the environment.

photo credit: kimberlyfaye