How to encourage people to drive less and reduce our carbon footprint ? Need more people to join initiatives like NuRide, to volunteer skipping the car.
However, I believe there is a business model to make good profit and at the same time making the world a better place, talking about social entrepreneurship. Here is an idea.
Drivers, any time you are driving and feel like sharing a ride, which you should, upload your source and destination locations using our iPhone app.
Riders, upload your desired trip starting point, destination point, and travel time constraints, online or with our iPhone app.
Our backend server will collect all available driver routes and requested rider routes, find the optimal shared segments among these routes, and make recommendations to the drivers and riders. The recommendation will include potential meeting point, meeting time, and the information about the ride partner.
This will involve some heavy weight multi-terminal routing algorithms to sort out the best solution, but that's not the most difficult part, well for a technologist....
Think about how much energy will be saved, how much carbon emission will be reduced, and how greener our planet will be.
Enjoy your impromptu rider, accidental traveller!
Update: some commute/ride sharing services are available, such as CommuterLink.com or Ridester.com, but they are far from "real time" and "social".
Should the driver charge some fee for providing the free ride?
ReplyDeleteInteresting question. I think it's up to the driver. Like Meetup.com, the organizers may choose to charge for an event, and the participants may choose not to go. The platform is for all people. : )
ReplyDeleteSo I guess the taxi drivers will protest!
ReplyDeleteYou bet! :D
ReplyDelete