Ridesharing

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Ridesharing Supported by Location Reporting Phones

Microelectronics embedded in personal devices like mobile phones and social networking can create an explosive growth in ridesharing.

In the United States, location reporting capabilities are to be incorporated in all new mobile phones by the end of 2005 according to the requirements for emergency E911 services. Once users can expose their location to 3rd parties that coordinate ridesharing, the main restrictions on car-pooling – having to arrange pick-ups and drop-offs in advance – may be removed. Because all parties can be identified, safety concerns about this kind of hitchhiking will be greatly alleviated.

Cash credits may also be easily arranged so that drivers will be motivated to pick up riders as a means of defraying costs. Desire for company on longer drives and HOV lanes will also increase participation. Abuses will be strongly discouraged by participant feedback and the identification and location reporting that is intrinsic to the system. Proof of insurance may be required by ridesharing agreements and could be included in the cost of the service.

As with other form of social networking, riders and drivers will be matched according to personal criteria. Neighbors are generally willing to give each other rides and it may be that a great many will select broad matching criteria which bring them into contact with people from groups and social strata whom they would not otherwise have an opportunity to meet. Since people spend about an hour a day traveling, a dramatic upsurge in ridesharing would help create a more intricately interwoven social fabric. In many ways, ridesharing is likely to be similar on-line dating, one of the web services with the strongest revenues. Ridesharing services could generate even stronger revenues than dating because almost everyone needs transportation and the monetary savings to users will be both obvious and significant.

Once even 1/10th of drivers use ridesharing, mass transit systems and subsidies could be eliminated because ridesharing can offer faster pick-ups and connections with almost no delays at intermediate stops. The median mass transit subsidy in the United States is almost five dollars for every dollar of fare collected. Shutting down such uneconomic mass transit routes could reduce government borrowing by several tens of billion annually and reduce overall energy use as well.

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