CAR-SHARE  (JOURNEY-SHARE)
The only way to solve the transport paradox

Introduction
The evolution of human society proceeds by Trial and Error. The best we can do, as Esther Dyson is fond of reminding us, is always to make new mistakes. Between the mistakes, if we work coherently and co-operatively, apply logic and adopt best practise and proven technology, history shows we can come through critical situations and make what we call progress.

It has been supposed by some that the transport needs of our market driven economy can be solved by getting people out of cars and into public transport. This is not true. If the number of journeys required were not to increase, it is true that switching a proportion from cars to vehicles such as trains and buses could lead to greater efficiency. But buses use the same roads as cars, and bus lanes cause traffic congestion for other users, while railways have limits on capacity for their own special reasons connected with design and operational imperatives.

The recent huge increase in the fields of data communication and processing has not, as yet, led to an decrease in the demand for personal travel associated with sustainable economic growth any more than it has led to the ‘paperless office’.  The evidence is to the contrary.

It is time to face up to the logic of the global problem of which the UK is an extreme example: our transport systems have become INEFFICIENT. The solution is therefore to make them more efficient, and to do it in a way that does not pass the problem on to the environment, to other parts of the economy, or to the physical and mental capacities of the individuals who make up the travelling public.

Mathematically speaking, this boils down to transporting the same number of people in fewer vehicles, without diminishing their comfort and safety or increasing their costs or adding to their journey time.

We are so used to accepting a ‘trade-off’ in problem solving that we sometimes forget that ‘trade-offs’ and ‘zero-sum’ are not the only game-plan. Synergy can combine several elements to the benefit of both the parts and the whole. A new synergy can form to resolve the conflicting strains of an apparent paradox.

New synergies are often formed by drawing on old, well established or even abandoned patterns or usage to form the framework for new technological developments. The invention of the packet-switched data networks that allow the passage of millions of private messages over the same connecting lines rather than requiring a single discrete connection between each sender and receiver, was inspired by combining the idea of the old-fashioned telegram with modern high-speed digital data transmission. Every sender and receiver is their own telegraph office, the telegrams are automatically assembled in the correct sequence to form files of any length we choose, stored in a server until we ask to ‘download’ them and instead of being printed, shown first on a PC monitor screen as text or picture.

The updating of our transport system for people must be done on the same basis, by reaching back into the past for the principle and applying new technology and best practice to meet modern requirements.

Those of us who visited Moscow before the end of the Cold War will remember the way the use of cars in the city was made efficient. A modest amount of traffic would be circulating through the snowbound winter streets. If you wanted to get from where you were to somewhere else and a bus was not in evidence, you strode into the middle of the road and flagged down a car that looked as if it was going your way. If you were driving a car, you might expect to be bagged by a pedestrian from time to time.

That is an extreme example, but in post WWII Britain and Europe, thumbing a lift was a significant part of the total transport pattern. Today, it is far less common, for reasons we shall look at in a minute. Before that, the reader of this paper must decide if they accept the fact that the more efficient use of private motor vehicles, by using less of them to move the same number of individuals, is the only improvement that can bring about a spectacular  reversal of the nightmare scenario now emerging in city centres and many arterial routes and bottle-necks. Attempts to penalise motorists by congestion charges will give no relief as they offer no solution to transport needs. They are a classic ‘trade-off’ which ‘passes the buck’ unless we respond imaginatively.
 
But if two or three people were in a car that would otherwise have held one, not only would the congestion charge be divided by 2 or 3 per head, the traffic volume would be diminished by 2 or 3 times for these vehicles, and the transport needs WOULD BE MET. Environmental and efficiency targets would be met. Furthermore if journey costs were to be shared, total costs per head would be seriously reduced. In other words our objectives are achieved not only without a trade-off, but with a bonus for all.

So now we will look at all the reasons why such behaviour is currently considered impossible or impractical and see if we can devise a system to overcome ALL of these either totally or to an extent that makes the adoption of such a system on a voluntary basis satisfactory to society as a whole and appealing to enough individuals to create, in an acceptably short time, a critical mass to give an appreciable positive outcome. Bear in mind that the present situation is intolerable, unsustainable and getting worse, and no other solution is on offer.



   REASONS WHY CARS/JOURNEYS ARE NOT SHARED MORE OFTEN

1.    Organisation at the work place

Car-Share/Journey-Share schemes are being planned all the time by companies and organisations who have limited car-parking facilities and at the same time cannot rely on Public Transport to deliver and carry home all their workforce or deal with their transport needs during the working day. There is an evident  though limited measure of success in some instances.

Within a place of employment it is after all possible to set up and introduce voluntary Car-Share schemes and set down the ground rules. As well as establishing the validity of insurance and licence details for drivers and vehicles, those joining a scheme can state if they are prepared to: Share with smokers?   Share with opposite sex?  Be a driver?  Be a passenger? Etc.  Once encouraged into such a scheme, certain travellers can pair off on a regular basis if they find journey times and places particularly compatible.

But the reason why success is not overwhelming is, paradoxically, because of the organisation and formality that a contractual arrangement, however voluntary, entails. There is a lack of flexibility and a level of commitment that can put quite a strain on individuals trying to manage their own life (and that of their family if they have one), and then adding in the timetable requests of one or more other individuals with some or all the same demands on their time.

In addition, schemes based on the work-place are typically unsuitable for all those journeys that are the exception from the commuting pattern such as visits to the doctor, dentist, or shopping precincts when exceptional absence is possible precisely because colleagues are not travelling at the same time.

2.    Opportunistic or Spontaneous Car/Journey-Share

To simplify the arguments, let us go to the other extreme, that of ‘thumbing a lift’ from an unknown driver or offering a lift to a roadside ‘thumber’.

The reasons why this practice has fallen into disuse in the very places where it is needed most are many and growing.

From the point of view of the Thumber:

1.    No idea of the legal status of the driver or the vehicle.
2.    Limited knowledge of the physical state of the vehicle.
3.    No idea of the mental or physical state of the driver.
4.    No idea of the age or experience of the driver.
5.    No idea in advance of the destination of the driver.
6.    No knowledge of insurance cover.
7.    No reasonable certainty of the bona fide intentions of the driver in stopping to give a lift.

From the point of view of the Driver:

1.    No reasonable certainty of the bona fide intentions of the Thumber.
2.    No idea of the mental or physical state of the Thumber.
3.    Possibly no clear idea in advance of the destination of the Thumber.
4.    Probable danger or obstruction to other traffic if stopping with little warning to pick up Thumber.
5.    Little or no chance of getting a financial contribution.
If we add up the 12 reasons listed above, it seems extraordinary that anyone would thumb a lift and, if they did, the chances of  them coming across the rare individual willing to pick them up would be similar to that of winning the lottery.  This would account for the fact that the only people I have seen thumbing a lift recently have been those with an obvious visible reason or in a plausible or reassuring context.

Let us see now if there is a scheme that can mitigate the rigidity of the pre-arranged contractual nature of the work-based arrangement while importing its advantages, and at the same time offer the spontaneity of the roadside pick-up, the opportunistic use of the best placed pairings, while removing or greatly reducing the 12 disadvantages.

Just as the basic principle for packet-switched networks to transport data to all destinations without jamming the trunk and local lines came from the abandoned telegraph, our scheme for secure and practical, flexible vehicle use in a significant part of the total transport operation will be based on the now abandoned thumbing of a lift. But we shall do it electronically, in a pre-prepared context.
 

GSM-POSTCODE CARSHARE

The title gives a clue to the two main elements of the new synergy. The GSM mobile phone network and its cellular character, the PostCode system and its agreed identification of established geographical areas by the first part of the code, easily known by all participants in respect of their place of work, their place of residence and any other place they travel to regularly.

The third element of the synergy is the Internet and World Wide Web, which will provide a Virtual Workplace, managed by the GSM Service Provider, for the purpose of facilitating the creation of GSM-POSTCODE CARSHARE USER GROUPS.

The scheme was first drafted by James Baring in 1995.

As well as the congestion problem, the scheme also addresses the Public Transport deficit in remote and rural communities.
 
GSM-POSTCODE CARSHARE

1.    General
There are some objections to the scheme which I have not dealt with fully here. One is the fact that when an individual is setting out on a return journey, they need to be sure they can get home. It could be said that until a certain critical mass has been reached in any of the proposed User Groups, it would be a risky proposition to accept a lift to work unless there was a good chance of getting back home. If this had to be with the same driver, this would put organisational pressures on all concerned which could be a deterrent in some cases. However, in the early days we will have to accept that there will be pioneers who will build the system up until critical mass is reached. Also there is no need to assume that both people in a CarShare operation will be commuters. One could be going to the office in London and back, the other could be someone on a once a month shopping trip to the capital.

There are refinements and ideas I have thought through to take care of many other objections and to enhance the scheme; but we should not expect everyone to be in favour. Indeed if they were, it could not cope with the demand. It can and must start gradually and build up. The Mayor of London’s plans will ensure that it will take off in London as soon as the entry charges to the central zone are applied


2. GSM POSTCODE CARSHARE USER GROUPS - Based on two or more common post-code areas.
(note, the Post Code element can be replaced by interest group membership for organisational purposes other than carshare)

2.1   Private User Groups
People who have residences and places of work, or other places they visit frequently that are in the same general postcode area, would join, if they wished, a User Group (UG) of similarly coded users. Obviously, such groups could be set up as PRIVATE list, started by neighbours in, for instance, Hertfordshire, who travel regularly to London, or the staff of a company in the city who start the groups from the other end (voluntary of course).  The lists would be submitted to the mobile service provider, with the mobile numbers of the participants. Membership would be confirmed by replying to a first text message sent to each saying (e.g.):
Please reply to this Text Message to confirm your membership of:
Carshare PUG MK19-W10
(PUG for Private User Group, followed by the Post Codes for the group, which the applicant would have noted when they applied).

Once the PUG is activated by the GSM Service Provider, any individual in that group, on pressing for 2-3 seconds a single pre-programmed  button on their mobile phone, would alert by Text Message other members IN OR PASSING THROUGH THE SAME GSM CELL at the time, to either a request for transport or an offer of transport, FROM that cell area TO one of the default post code areas of that Carshare PUG. If the receiver of the message is a driver in a car they can stop at a convenient point and call the sender and arrange to pick them up.

The GSM Cell could be ANYWHERE, but the destination expected would be one of the predefined Post Code Areas, and anywhere in it that suited the driver, not the passenger, unless the driver wished to go out of their way. For example you could be at Lands End and be lucky enough to ping a passing member of your CarShare group with Post Codes for Colchester and London W8, but that would not be expected!

A PRIVATE group such as the above example, could set its own rules which might be quite strict and involve the identity of members being known to the others, accessible on a private web page.


2.2   Closed and Open Carshare User Groups
It would also be possible to have CUGs (Closed User Groups) and OUGs (Open User Groups) which could be self-constructing on the Internet, based on post codes. An applicant would enter 2 or more
Post Code areas, and be either offered a group to join or the chance to start a new group. They could either start a CUG or an OUG.

If they start a CUG, other people can apply to join, giving the details that the starter of the CUG (who becomes the moderator) has decided will be required, such as type of car, number of seats usually available for passengers. If the applicant hears nothing more, they can assume they are not joined. An OPEN USER GROUP would have no moderator, supervision only at GSM service provider level, and anyone could join subject to subsequent confirmation by the GSM provider running the site.

3. Controls and Limitations
Every group, in order to become ACTIVE, has to be accepted by the GSM Service Provider running the web site. Only they will be able to authenticate the bona fide existence of the individuals, checked against their mobile numbers. No "Pay as you Go" phones would be involved unless a satisfactory security method is devised.

On the web site, groups will be shown as either ACTIVE, UNDER CONSTRUCTION, WAITING ACTIVATION APPROVAL etc, as well as the category PUG, CUG, OUG Details of members of a PUG will not be publicly available. Indeed the PUG may not have been set up using the web site at all. In the case of CUGs and OUGs, the amount of information that members wish to disclose to other members of the same group will be determined by the moderator (in the case of the CUG) who will set a minimum, and the individual group member who can fill in the options they want to in excess of the minimum.

In the case of the OUGs, the minimum data would be the type of car, years driving experience, seats usually available. For ANY group, a minimum number of years driving  experience can be set for that group when construction is started, i.e. by the Opener of that group, who has entered the defining Post Codes.

The highest level of data requirement would require group members to submit insurance details, road tax and MOT expiry dates, driving record and a health check.

4.    A Practical Example
Someone starts a group <MK19 W10> <OUG> <10 years experience>. Every day the web site would tell how many people had applied. Once there were 5 takers, the GSM provider would consider activation. A text message would go automatically to each applicant saying:

"Carshare OUG MK19 W10 has 5 applicants.
To confirm you wish to join please reply to this message".

If there were 3 replies, the Service Provider could still activate if they wished. They would confirm by a text message:
You are registered with Carshare OUG MK19 W10. 3 active
members.

5.    Financing the Web Site
The system, including the setting up and supervision of the web site would be paid for by the GSM Service Provider charging the calls at the standard rate for each phone (not part of any free allowance).

6.   Promotion to start initial applications:
Initial advertising of the scheme would be done by the GSM provider when sending a monthly account

7.   Special Security Considerations
To avoid a mugger getting hold of a phone belonging to a user and using it as a group member, you would need a simple but effective security check. I will not discuss that yet!

8.   Incentives for users
The savings for participants would be a great incentive.  Agreed rates for passengers to contribute to the cost of trips have already been established by National Carshare (see link later in this document).

9.   Incentives for GSM Providers
Local mobile services are the current 'big idea', i.e. services which use the ability of the cellular system to sense users in a given area. This is a very attractive service to get and keep subscribers.

10.  Incentives for Government
Economising on fuel consumption and Environmental Action to reduce pollution and global warming have never been more pressing.

Traffic congestion is becoming a serious problem. This could have a significant chance of reducing it.

Because the motorists receiving the Text call from the user requesting a pickup would be able to stop their vehicle when convenient and call the requesting party to arrange the exact time and place, there would be no phoning while driving.

With 2 in a car, calls on other matters can be answered by the passenger. In this way the scheme would be a very great move to safer driving by eventually thousands or even millions of motorists.


Some final thoughts
It is quite likely that in any group, certain users would discover people who were ideally suited to their needs and their route and 'pair off' to the extent that they would probably call each other first before having resort to the group with a 'blind' call. This would in no way be harmful to the system. It would make it more efficient as numbers grew, protect against overload and abuse. Any member who had established a subset of drivers with postcode matches within a group, and wished to cease receiving further text requests or offers, could de-activate their phone number in the list. This would mean that it would not be called automatically when they were in the same cell as a 'blind' caller in the same group; but it would not prevent them receiving a targeted single call.

All texts through the group broadcast would be recorded by the GSMP so abuse would be punishable by disconnection. Users would accept this as one of the terms and conditions of joining a GSM CarShare Group. Insurance and Drivers license validity could also be checked by the GSMP/ISP with expiry dates recorded if applicable.

Lets face it, anyone thumbing a lift these days has no idea if the driver has any of the above. This is going to make life safer for driver and passenger. While there may be imperfections and no absolute guarantees, the use of mobile phones in this way can only be an improvement on any other way of finding people to share journeys. And if we do NOT find a way to use car seats more efficiently, our transport systems and hence our economy will FAIL. In the US they are already giving priority to cars with 2 or more occupants on roads in some states/towns.

Since writing the above, I have been informed there are examples in Europe where the above type of system has been set up by a business to enable the public to reach them, but instead of using the mobile cellular system to match sharers automatically a fully staffed call centre is employed to do the job, with people phoning in and the operators noting location and destination and matching the requirements and offers. It has still been found worthwhile even at that cost.

* * * * *

The following should be viewed when considering the
GSM-POSTCODE CARSHARE SCHEME.
http://www.nationalcarshare.co.uk
http://www.nationalcarshare.co.uk/downloads.html <<<<<<
http://www.mkweb.co.uk/travel/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=1256
http://www.mkweb.co.uk/home/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=12610

They show how the Carshare concept is accepted as a vital and necessary part of any future transport system, and in the case of National Carshare that the use of the Web has been appreciated already. All that needs to be added is the advantages of using the cellular nature of the GSM system together with the PostCode system in order to convert it from a rather laborious facility which requires participants to be organised and punctual and rigid in their plans, to one which is flexible and serendipitous, to work alongside.

The National Carshare site has a series of Word documents which set out the benefits, as well as the difficulties which have to be overcome. A lot of work has been done here which will enable GSM-POSTCODE CARSHARE to work to similar standards. It might of course be possible for GSM service providers to team up with National CarShare to create the new form, to run concurrently with their 'steam' web-based carshare.

A vital consideration to be understood is that the scheme will NOT involve people driving and using mobile phones at the same time.

Should a text message arrive on the phone of a driver, it would not be of an urgency that it would require attention until they had time to deal with it after coming to a halt and switching off, or ignoring it completely - there is no onus on the receiver to reply or acknowledge ANY GSM-POSTCODE CARSHARE request or offer.

There are a great many security techniques which can be applied which I will not mention here, and the eventual use of G3 mobiles will add a new dimension of capability and security. It will also be possible to set up the system for current and G3 phones in such a way that individual users can keep their actual phone numbers confidential.

Apart from Car-sharing, the concept can be applied to many groups and organisations who would find it an advantage for their individual members to be able to locate others finding themselves in the same area.

 JB.