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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: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 18 2015, @03:24PM
In my early 20s a woman I worked with drove by my house on her way to work, so we started to car pool. She'd drive to my place, we'd pick a car, and drive to work. Worked well for a few months. Then I got sick at work. It's around noon, I don't know which end to hold over the toilet, and just wanted to go home. She had no way to get home. She ended up leaving work early to go home with me. We didn't carpool after that. We stayed friends, but learned our lesson.
Then, when I became an engineer, I could never be sure when I was going home. Maybe 4 days out of 5 I'd leave on time, but it was common for something to happen that made me stay late. One time the guy across the street worked at the same place I did, we tried carpooling a couple times but he wasn't happy staying late when I had to.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by hankwang on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:08PM
"She ended up leaving work early to go home with me. We didn't carpool after that."
They don't have taxis around where you work?
In Netherlands, a compact car costs about €0.25 per km (variable costs including mileage-dependent depreciation); car pooling saves you half of that. A taxi costs about €2 per km. So even if you've to pay a taxi for a one-way trip once every two weeks, it still costs less than driving your own car.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 18 2015, @05:12PM
The taxi would have cost prolly $20 (1980 dollars), when you're making minimum wage that's a day's wages.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Wednesday November 18 2015, @07:05PM
So what? If you only had an emergency like that once, then what is the problem?
She ended up leaving work early to go home with me.
So you forced your carpool buddy to go home early, because *you* had an issue? The proper way of handing things would have been to take a taxi, or give your carpool buddy money for a taxi. Or have some sort of a plan ahead of time worked out between the two of you - things come up. Then you continue with your arrangement considering it worked for months already. How long to save $20? Even in 1980s, that's probably 20-gal of gas.. so even with an efficient car, maybe 2 weeks?
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday November 19 2015, @03:06PM
Your username is oddly appropriate for this story.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh