Computer-matched car pooling — the next ”killer app” and good energy policy

Car pooling or paid ride sharing should be computerized, at least for commuters. Here’s how a good system might work, using currently available technology. It could even be the next great application for computers, wi-fi, and the internet.

Way back in the 1960’s or 70’s I read that almost any mass transit system looked good compared to people commuting one to a car, but if you could average four riders per car, almost nothing imaginable was as efficient, at least for fuel and probably for capital outlay as well. After all, the cars are already bought, the owners already know how to drive them, and the current road system is more than adequate if commuting traffic is cut by three fourths. The problem is making four to a car attractive enough, especially convenient enough. Car pooling gets to be a drag very quickly if anyone needs to change his schedule.

Truckers, even solo independent truckers, are using the internet to match loads to trucks that need to go someplace anyway. Web sites apparently post loads available with departure points and destinations so a trucker who just dropped a load away from home can find another load to haul on his trip back home. In stead of phoning around, sometimes for days, a trucker can go online and then telephone to confirm his return trip load in half an hour. That’s great turnaround time for a trip that can take several days. But a typical commute takes 30 to 90 minutes, so thirty minutes wait to fill up your car, or to find a full car ready to go, is a gross inconvenience. To be competitive, car pooling almost needs to be several minutes faster than walking from your parking place to your desk at work, just to make up for the time lost while you watch one or two other guys being picked up in the morning or dropped off at night. What’s more, it still has to be flexible, so if you want to leave early or late, you can still get a ride nearly as quickly. Looking up web sites is too cumbersome for this. Commuters need some sort of very rapid computerized matching of riders, empty seats, departure points, and destinations.

What if you could just telephone the ‘commuter computer’ in the morning when you were ready to leave, and tap in a few extra numbers to confirm who and where you are and your destination. That could be preprogrammed into your home and mobile phones. If a car came to your house in just a few minutes, and only stopped to pick up one other person, and dropped you off right at the door to work after dropping off only one other person, it might actually be better than driving yourself on a day with bad weather. That could be done if everyone who wanted to drive had a laptop computer in his car, or a car computer, that had mobile internet access. As the driver started to work in the morning, he would turn on his car computer and notify the commuter matching service of his destination and the number of empty seats he has. The car computer should have G.P.S., so it can report where the car really is. Within seconds, the matching service should give the car computer the information on the best route to pick up riders, and they should all be nearby. The G.P.S. navigation in the car computer should help the driver find his riders — they may vary from day to day and he may not know the way to their houses. The car computer should then figure the best route to work, dropping the passengers off so the driver ends up near his own destination.

DailyKos