The iHitch: High Tech Hitchhiking  

Phil Hart has a post up at TOD ANZ on an idea for automating hitchhiking and car pooling, leveraging GPS enabled phones, which he calls the "iHitch" - High-Tech Hitchhiking. Phil also has an interview on Radio NZ about peak oil.

Imagine if, instead of congested lanes of large cars with one person on board, we had a stream of traffic picking up and setting down passengers to help them get to their destination - a truly 'rapid transit' service in action on every street.

Can you picture this future where every car is instead a mini-bus? Or are you turned off instantly by the modern day stigma associated with 'hitchhiking'?

Hitching a ride used to be quite socially acceptable. Nowadays (at least in the 'civilised' west) somebody sticking out their thumb on the side of the road is seen as a much less than desirable passenger. Equally, were you to decide to try your hand for ride, you might not be all that comfortable with the first person who stops for you - after all, what sort of creep would pick up a stranger off the side of the road?!
Hitchhiking into the Future

It doesn't matter whether it's hydrogen, batteries or gasoline under the hood - if it's two tonnes of metal carrying one person then it is grossly inefficient. Clearly, we have the roads and spare seats in the vehicles to get us where we want to be. In our more frugal future, we're going to need to make better use of those spare seats.

For those of us standing on the side of the road waiting for a ride, what we lack is a means of connecting us to a driver who doesn't know we need them. But the technological solution to this problem is already close at hand - it is simply a matter of integrating three common functions:

* A mobile (cell) phone to inform the world of our current location and where we want to go.
* GPS units to work out where we are standing and which drivers are coming our way.
* A means of paying the driver a small fee for the ride.

Introducing the 'iHitch'

Let's call this new device the 'iHitch' - a phone, GPS and payment system all in one - a simple challenge for the likes of Nokia, Apple or Garmin. The next step is equipping a critical mass of passengers and vehicles for it to be a practical option. And finally we will need some software which, when told where the drivers are going and where the passengers want to be, can make the optimum connections between the two.

Robert Gilliland didn't think much about carpooling until gas prices got out of control. Now, he's happy to trade his motoring freedom for $120 in weekly savings.

Gilliland found one rider through the classifieds Web site Craigslist and another using the carpool-matching service eRideShare.com. Thousands of commuters like him have turned to the Internet to arrange shared rides as average gas prices hover around $4 a gallon.

Each day, Gilliland picks up Brian McKenzie near his home in Lakeland, Fla., and Mike Rogers in Seffner on his way to work. He drops off McKenzie in Tampa and Rogers in Clearwater, where Gilliland works as a construction designer. He reverses that for the commute home.

The extra stops add up to an hour in round-trip commuting, meaning he could be spending three hours a day in his Ford Taurus, but the alternative is to shell out $150 a week out of his own pocket. With carpooling, his two passengers contribute $60 a piece; he pays only half of that to factor in wear and tear on his car.

"We've become friends," Gilliland said. "It's been a good experience for me socially as well as economically."

Gas prices have climbed even higher in the year-plus since Gilliland started carpooling. The number of daily visitors to eRideShare has jumped about threefold since February, when gas started to climb from the $3-a-gallon range. A rival site, Carpoolworld.com, had about 4,400 new U.S. registrations in both June and July, compared with some 800 in February.

Although some people turned to these sites long ago to help reduce pollution or take advantage of faster, high-occupancy vehicle lanes that require at least two occupants, the pocketbook has been the largest influencer of all.

"People are well aware of global warming, ... but it takes the price of gasoline to get them to take that step," said Steven Schoeffler, founder of eRideShare in Edwardsville, Ill. "It's something they wanted to do anyway but maybe needed a little extra impetus."

The various carpooling sites vary in how they connect commuters.

Craigslist offers straightforward classified listings, alongside the ads for new roommates and used furniture, for instance, while Zimride's Carpool works as a Facebook application, tapping the personal profiles users keep at the popular online hangout. Zimride also lets users rate others akin to eBay Inc.'s feedback system.