My wife’s car was in for repair’s this week, so we were down to just one car.  On Tuesday, we both needed to go to the office, so I made arrangements with my neighbor John for a ride in the morning to my parent’s house.  He works in the same town where I use to live and from there I could borrow my Mom’s car for the rest of the day.

Well, it could not have gone better.  John picked me up at 6:30 in the morning, in a nice warm car on a cold morning.  We had a great conversation during the ride and the 45 minute trip passed very quickly.  It was too bad I could not pick up another ride for the second half of my trip or found a ride for my trip back home.

Now, I did not pay John for the ride, but I gladly would have.  He didn’t mind giving me a ride since he was just making his normal every day commute anyway.  So it did not cost him anything and he enjoyed having the company.

While we were driving north on Route 9, we could see that the majority of the cars were single passenger vehicles.  All this unused capacity is just going to waste.  I think the bulk of our daily trips are on major highways and we would need to provide our own transportation for the first and last 10% of the commute.  Imagine driving your car to a commuter lot where you could get a ride or pick up some paying passengers.  If you then were dropped off near your work place, could you text a coworker for a ride the rest of the way?  What if you sent out a tweet?

It seems like I never have enough time.  What about you?  Think of all the things you could do while some else did the driving.  Think of the money you could save.  Think about how sharing rides could help the economy, transportation and the environment.  Now do you think you would try an organized paid ride system?

photo credit: Axel-D

My son is a big fan of Green Day and I like a lot of their music too.  They have the raw energy of a 3 piece band that reminds me of some of the best punk bands in the early 80’s.  This song has a solid bass and drum line that erupts into a typical Green Day crescendo after the chorus:

There’s a drought at the fountain of youth, and now I’m dehydrating
My tongue is swelling up, as say 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4

Troubled times, you know I can not lie
I’m off the wagon and I’m hitchin’ a ride

Wow, I have seen the future and it is Avego Shared Transport.  This company based in Ireland is actually implementing the Pay4Rides concept that I have been researching for the last few years.  It is very exciting to see them working on this new way to travel.

Their vision matches exactly what I have been looking for.  They are trying to expand the public transit system to run on every road in the country.  All of our single occupant vehicles are wasting a tremendous amount of passenger capacity.

So how do they do it?  Watch this YouTube video for a short explanation and demonstration:

This is a very intelligent combination of 4 exiting technologies to enable shared transport:

1. GPS – satellite tracking easily establishes driver’s daily routes
2. GSM – mobile phone networks connect all participants
3. GIS – geographic information systems enable automatic decision making
4. Web – facilitates communication with all users and ride share web sites

As you watch the demonstration, I think you’ll agree this is a smooth process with enormous potential.  They have addressed 2 of the biggest concerns with ride sharing by offering a system to validate participants and ratings for both drivers and riders.

Yes, it will take time to build a community of users for a system like this.  However increased participation over time will only enhance the number of available rides and riders.  If you take a few minutes to watch the video, let me know if you are half as impressed with Avego as I am.

My friend Mike has recently been doing some consulting work with me and today he shared my weekly commute.  We rotated our mp3 players taking turns as DJ.  We talked, laughed and enjoyed the companionship during the 2 hour ride.

Since we both have a lot of experience with computer software, at one point the conversation turned to how to create a paid ride sharing web site.  We batted around several ideas on how to mix the internet with text messaging to more easily enable riders and drivers to get together.

When I got home tonight, I did some research to see what was already out there and I was surprised to find some very interesting ideas:

• TreeHugger - Car Pooling is Still a Growing Trend
• NY Times - Need a Ride? Check Your iPhone
• Mashable - PickupPal is eHarmony for Hitch-Hikers

So it looks like other people have also been thinking about this and implementing some promising technology.  Take a look and then share your thoughts on using the latest technology to match drivers and riders together.

photo credit: Dave Duarte

On Monday night, I saw a story on my local Fox news explaining a proposal by Mayor Bloomberg for Shared Cab Rides Coming to NYC.  This would allow riders to share cabs so they each pay less while the cabbie actually earns more.  So instead of just providing one ride for $25, the driver could charge 2 riders $20 each or maybe 3 riders would pay $15 each.  And don’t forget the tips.

By permitting cab drivers to pick up additional fares, they could attract new riders who might not choose a cab if they had to pay the full fare themselves.  The Mayor said that a shared-ride system is a win-win for the city.

Think of all the people landing at NYC area airports who need rides to the city.  Grouping riders not only makes financial sense, but would also reduce traffic, cut gasoline consumption and help the environment.  Is there anything not to like?

The only problem is many people do not like to share, they prefer their privacy.  I can understand this, but wouldn’t all of these benefits offset the slight inconvenience of losing some personal space?  Most cab rides are relatively short, so it should not be that hard to tolerate another passenger.  If you do not want to talk, plug in your iPod and listen to some of your favorite music to pass the time.

So maybe next time you hail a cab, you will have some company for the ride.  Think about it, wouldn’t sharing a ride make the trip in a cab fair?

photo credit: timpearce4816

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