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mobile phone location car sharing
FROM: David Vanes
What NEED does this meet?
This would make car sharing much more dynamic and feasable. This would have environmental benifits It could be used commercially by a combination of bus / taxi /train companies to link transport.
What is the APPROACH?
most car sharing is "static" you find a friend on a web site and you are stuck to the times. Routes may not be available. Here we use mobile phone location to identify the users position and text messages of the destination (post code?) to identify the needed tranportation. Users are registered to a web site so the system is secure. Users requesting lifts can be matched dynamically to the movement of users offering transport. So the lift share you get in the morning can be separate to the lift share in the evening - and lift shares from day to day can be at various times and with different people. This can be used comercially to share taxis and utilize busses. Easiest to explain with the dispersal of a plane load of people from an airport. Users are all in one place and can be contacted by txt msg. The are directed to busses which disperse along major routes. Taxis can "rendevous" with the busses to take smaller groups off at strategic road junctions. Everyone gets door to door service. Costs are shared, less road use, user costs are cheaper, very dynamic,fast and efficient. Use blue tooth technology to pay and make the system cashless. It's a bit like using that lift thumbing device used in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
What are the BENEFITS to people?
Less cars on the road Less pollution Ability of non drivers OAPs to get to places not served by public transport. Public transport becomes cheaper and more efficient as it uses more direct routes. You can use special TRUSTED systems to make shared school runs and solve a major traffic problem (30% of traffic in the morning).
What is the COMPETITION?
There are many patents out there with user location, guiding to public transport, avoiding traffic congestion etc. Nobody yet has applied mobile phone location (only just becoming available in europe) to makeing shared transport possible.
What BUDGET & LOGISTICS are required?
Mobile phone companies are beginning to offer an application programming interface for mobile location.
There are the beginings of pay by mobile phone for commercial users. I am not an application programmer so I have no idea how it would be built. I do know bus companies are building Buss tracking systems Road transport (especially security vans) have tracking and delivery systems. Geo plan data is available with many web sites offing route planning
I think it may be a case of putting it together rather than inventing the wheel.
October 31, 2003 in Connecting People, Environmental, Matching System, Reputation Systems, SMS, Transport | Permalink
Comments
COMPETITION should read (at least)...
http://www.nationalcarshare.co.uk/
http://www.shareajourney.com/
http://www.carclubs.org.uk/
Posted by: Andrew Rose at Oct 31, 2003 4:31:42 PM
Also, see Freewheelers - http://www.freewheelers.co.uk - The Free International Lift Sharing Website.
Cheers Daniel
Posted by: Daniel Harris at Nov 1, 2003 9:21:30 AM
Mobile phone location is less reliable than just entering where you are and where you want to go (you'd have to do the last bit anyway). Also requires the sharee to comprehensively enter their upcoming movements, which is unlikely.
Posted by: Chris at Nov 1, 2003 5:00:07 PM
Have just spent an hour & a half looking on the web for a UK mobile to buy which has LBS (location based services). Couldn't find one - and I'm expert at searching the net. The vendors need to do a lot more marketing work in allowing people to find & buy these phones.
Posted by: Banana at Nov 30, 2003 8:18:17 PM
Mylifts.com provides a great example of lift sharing communities with this interactive website using cutting edge technology to put all the parts together.
Posted by: Mechelle Moore at Jun 5, 2004 7:01:03 PM
http://www.mylifts.com is a good website. i used it and got a match straight away.
Posted by: Dan at Jun 5, 2004 7:19:07 PM
Hello
You are doing a wonderful job, just love the site!!!
There is always more information out there.
Thanks for the good informationen.
Posted by: goerge fild at Jun 27, 2004 4:34:09 PM
Hello,
It's funny to know more people out there are thinking about the same problems. Not that is very surprising though since we all live in the same world. Now my question: Is LBS (location based services) the only technology that enables building such a mobile lift application?
Posted by: Pedro at Apr 25, 2009 11:17:44 PM