

Ask YC: Would you commute with strangers to save gas/time? - tt

We built ride4all.com to locate people with similar commutes as you. But we don't yet have a strong sense whether there would be a lot of people who would use it. Btw, it's hosted on Google App Engine.
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imgabe
While I wouldn't use it personally, there's a practice in the Washington DC
area (possibly others as well) known as slugging, which is essentially
organized hitchhiking. You go to a specific place and wait for someone going
your direction who wants to take advantage of the carpool lanes. From what
I've heard from people who use it, it works remarkably well. My point is, yes,
there is a market of people who will take rides with strangers.

<http://www.slug-lines.com/>

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mhartl
Be careful you don't run afoul of taxi laws. Cars are only inefficient means
of transport because they're usually 3/4 empty. The taxicab companies would
like to keep them that way, and municipalities are depressingly complicit.
(Google for "taxi medallion" to see what I mean.) If you start getting
successful, expect to hear from their lawyers.

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jrockway
It sounds like the same arguments that protect torrent sites will protect this
company. They aren't providing taxi service, they are just telling you about
other people interested in sharing a ride. No different than any discussion
forum or whatever.

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secorp
I do this already in the Bay Area in California. There are several carpool
pickup points in the East Bay (Oakland/Berkeley) that drop off in downtown San
Francisco. I either pick up people here or hitch a ride every morning. The
advantage is that you can use the carpool lane which saves 10-15min during
rush-hour and a $4 toll.

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immad
Do you have to pay when you are hitching?

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etal
I would have used it. I used to ride with a van pool. Links:

<http://www.vanpool.com/> (sponsored by Enterprise rent-a-car)

<http://www.vanpoolusa.com/> (sponsored by VPSI Inc.)

This was in Southern California, where public transportation has been
endangered or extinct for decades. The arrangement sucked, and my current
commute sucks enough that I'd carpool again if the meetup time wasn't 5:45
a.m.

Edit: I poked at it a little, and noticed that it doesn't ask for a radius
when saving a new commute (no matches). Is the matching algorithm fuzzy enough
to figure out when I'm "close enough" to someone else's route? Does it match
along the whole route, so I could pick someone up midway?

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tt
Indeed, no need to specify the radius. It would not consider a match if you
have to go too far out of your way to pick up someone else.

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noodle
as much as i like the idea, i'd much rather find someone to ride with on my
own, in person, from my own social circle. that removes the reliability and
trust issues.

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tt
We are planning to introduce a "group code" feature, which allows people
within your known social circle to use and find rides among each other. Would
that work?

We are currently shying away from another facebook app, but maybe that's the
way to go for this.

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noodle
for success, you're probably going to need social hooks, and facebook apps is
a good way.

the code feature could work to solve the issue, yes. or you could just allow
drivers to administer how public their rides are, only allowing people to join
if they are directly given the link to their ride or whatever.

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byrneseyeview
I take the subway to work, so "Yes."

If you can have a system that's like mass transit, but competitive -- e.g. if
there's a policy that could have positive or negative effects, the transit
system doesn't have to try it all at once -- that would be a pleasant
improvement.

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OneSeventeen
We have a bus system that I love, so "Yes".

The company that runs them tries a sort of service like you've described, but
I have anecdotal evidence that the trick is no one wants to drive. Part of it
is that they will provide a vehicle and so they want a sole person to be
responsible for it, which isn't applicable to y'all. The other thing is that a
lot of people are like me: traffic makes me an angry person and I'd much
rather play around on my laptop or read than drive.

I don't want to sound like a nay-sayer. I definitely think that there's a
market for this. However, I'd expect some strong regional trending (which is
to say poor adoption in some cities and awesome adoption in others).

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icky
No. I like having flexible hours.

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tt
Indeed this would be a challenge. If you have no predictability with time or
even dates of travel, then <http://www.ride4all.com> wouldn't be very useful
for you.

Also, if you have a short commute, say 5 miles or less, then you probably
wouldn't bother.

But if your commute is 10-15+ miles, and as gas price increases (say to
$6/gallon), would you reconsider?

I live in SF bay area, and I flinch whenever seeing tons of people in single-
occupant cars stuck in traffic, day in and day out.

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icky
I'm probably not your target demographic:

I'd rather miss rush hour, and I'm currently lucky enough to be in a position
where gas prices don't matter much to me (~10mi commute, occasional
telecommute, hybrid car, good income, low expenses).

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colgur
Cool idea. A couple of good points made in the comments: 1\. Flexible hours
2\. Privacy/Safety issues

The first point is common to all ride-share including mass-transit. I think
you need to consider a mobile strategy that addresses a scenario like "I'm
ready to go. Anyone going my way?" or "I'm headed out. Anyone need a ride?"

Privacy/Safety is implicit but important. You partly address that via gender
specification but it needs to go further like "I'm a girl is only willing to
share with other girls".

Anyway, a nice start. If you're serious then there is much work ahead.

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davidw
It doesn't respond to <http://ride4all.com> (or didn't... now it did... now
it's just slow...)

Sadly, being in the US, I would plaster it with some kind of legal disclaimer
about not taking responsibility for anything untoward happening. And maybe
some plain English safety tips, as security is certainly in many people's
minds.

~~~
tt
Regarding the response time, it's really out of our hands (and in Google
AppEngine's hands really). Hopefully that will improve if indeed Google AE had
issues at the time you clicked.

Regarding disclaimer, yeah, we thought about that. Indeed need to add that.
Thanks David.

~~~
davidw
It responds fine on the www. address - it's the other one that seems slow to
load. Weird.

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petercooper
No. I suspect that for many people their car is a sanctuary where they can
actually get some peace and quiet twice a day, listen to their own music, and
generally get some "me" time. That said, there are still lots of people who
would, so go for it!

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a-priori
I've done it. I don't have a car, and I used to work at a place 40km away
(i.e, outside comfortable cycling distance). Hence, I got rides with co-
workers I otherwise had no contact with.

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m0nty
I would use it. Nice implementation too. Maybe you could let people set start
and end points using clicks on the Google map?

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ericb
Very cool idea. I would add an ebay like trust rating to account for
punctuality, safe driving, etc.

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andr
People have been known to do much worse things with strangers to save money
for gas ;)

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pkrumins
No! I want my privacy.

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seiji
There is also facebook and college campus centric <http://zimride.com>

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ideas101
i think its a fantastic idea, this saves a lot of time, money and energy ...
this idea will be instantly super-hit amongst south asians (india, pakistan,
bangladesh, srilanka and may be china as well) - you might be surprised to
know that people from these countries are used to share rides with strangers,
in fact it is a norm in some parts of these countries... there is absolutely
no fear or privacy or any other kind of issue amongst people from these
countries - in fact there is something like share-a-taxi program in many part
of these countries. Following is what i would suggest:

1.target everyone but make a special effort to focus on south asians.

2\. make your web-tool extremely simple to use. use simple GUI with simple
english so that a person who is not that familiar with the language or
computer can also use it with ease.

3\. Also after getting initial success try to make features available in
multiple language, this will increase your market by senior citizens (again
south asians) who dont know english.

4\. Two parties should be able to connect instantly, here u may add some kind
of web-to-cell (and cell-to-web) tools. so for example if i'm already out of
my home/work but if i can still pick-up someone on the way then i should be
able to know that via my cell phone.

5\. You will also come to know what routes are more popular in what part of
the city, this should make you able to add few more features that saves user's
time in getting a ride right away.

6\. This is most important feature: add a tool where 2 people speaking same
language get connected right away - this will create a comfort zone and your
service will be hit just by adding this feature .... TRUST ME ON THIS !!!

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popat
i agree with #6 - this is something like dating a person who speaks your
language so that there is this comfort of sharing things while commuting -
this also creates instant connection between 2 people, an ice-breaker.

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ideas101
absolutely, few features should be just copied from dating websites; like what
language you prefer, or whats your regular route and what time of the day -
bunch of people going for grocery at the same time and place can get connected
to share ride almost on daily basis. there are many software professional from
india (on H1B visa) whose wives get bored by staying at home doing nothing,
this kind of service will connect wives to do things together.... a social
connection in itself (wow!)

