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Given the proliferation of microtransit services trying to match drivers and passengers, you might think they had ride-sharing and carpooling all figured out. But the recent demise of Leap Transit in San Francisco—to say nothing of the other transportation start-ups that have failed without a media whimper—reminds us that even in a big city it’s not easy to fill empty vehicle seats. And in the suburbs, it’s downright mathematically impossible.
Or just about, anyway, according to a provocative new thought-experiment by Steve Raney, principal at a smart mobility consultancy called Cities21. In a working paper, the former Silicon Valley tech product manager crunched the numbers on ride-sharing in the Palo Alto area and found the odds of matching drivers with passengers long, to say the least. Raney calls it the “Suburban Ridematch Needle in the Haystack Problem.”
“I wanted to gently inject some reality into this,” he tells CityLab.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2015, @10:07AM
Public transit is nasty. Some countries (like Japan) cannot avoid that fate, but I don't really want to be packed into a can with 100 strangers if that can be avoided. Public transit is one of most efficient methods of catching (and spreading) the flu.
And this is why you fail. There is no try, there is only do. Do,or do not, there is no try. Yoda is trying to tell you why you are such a sucker for terrorism! Is all Americans were this Germophobic, just handing out hand-sanitizer at subway stops would be as effective as 9/11. BOOO! Cowards. American Cowards. I remember when I knew Americans, before that disasterous war with Spain, when they were the paragons of freedom and liberty, and courage. But now Americans are afraid to get out of their cars. What if I told you that the easiest vector to take you out, is in your car? You think shrapnel in the air-bag is a danger? What if it were cyanide, and programmed to go off when you said nasty things about transportation? HuH? Never thought of that, did you? Well, don't, it is highly unlikely. Unless you really are a cowardly (and paranoid) American.