Riffing on "Eventbrite / carpool/

I t otally love the Eventbrite / carpool idea and I think there are lots of reasons an app that schedules groups of people to customizable transportation could meet community needs.

 

I decided to let the group work and then see whether my ideas might overcomplicate the first pass at lunchtime.

#hackthecommute

 

Example 1: my mom and I like to go to the symphony. Sometimes a friend of Mom’s drives, but who wants to drive a car into downtown Seattle at rush hour? There is a light rail stop right under the Benaroya but there is the small matter of where to park on the outside end. My mom’s friend is not always available and often we just take the bus. But the 7 at night is, um, sometimes a trip. But we are cheap. We would not like to pay as much as a cab costs for the two us but might like to bid on how much we would pay and then have the option of upping what we would pay to help form a group.

 note poit of carpool is to reduce number of vehicles on road and also in case of specialized vehicles to optimize use over all day not just specific hours

Example 2: I k now a number of faith communities where one person brings several others. Sometimes the driver is a senior, maybe someone who really should not be driving herself even on Sundays during the little old ladies driving to church hours, maybe someone wo prays every time she has to take a vision test…  But again people of modest means who maybe could pay something  but would like the option of sharing costs. These people could all probably qualify for paratransit but then it would be the public transportation agency’s problem to figure out how to group and share costs.

 

 

Example 3: transit agency trying to decide how to provide service in areas wehre need for local transit is as important or more so as connections to express lines. But maybe people can schedule some categories of activities all on the same day of the week so that it would make sense for ataxi co or other service to concentrate vehicles in different areas on different days.

 

A number of different nonprofits hold group meals for specific immigrant communities or provide other transportation services that also involve multiple people going the same place at the same time but not every day. Some of these people use wheelchairs or other mobility aids so there is need for accessible vehicles but different agencies need the vehicles on different days. So an app that could help agnecies shre vehcicle and schedule their individual customers could add a lot of value if there were a way to enhance collaboration among the agencies.

 

In short, would I use this kind of app? Probably!

 

Would I try to teach my mom to use it? Maybe.

 

Would try to pitch it to a broader audience in the categories of people above?  I might try to hire a better pitch person, but I would definitely look at the marketplace when deciding how to pitch.