A new analytic framework enables analysis of GPS data on 150 million cab rides in New York City.
Cellphone apps that find users car rides in real time are exploding in popularity: The car-service company Uber was recently valued at $18 billion, and even as it faces legal wrangles, a number of companies that provide similar services with licensed taxi cabs have sprung up.
What if the taxi-service app on your cellphone had a button on it that let you indicate that you were willing to share a ride with another passenger? How drastically could cab-sharing reduce traffic, fares, and carbon dioxide emissions?
Authoritatively answering that question requires analyzing huge volumes of data, which hasn’t been computationally feasible with traditional methods. But in today’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, researchers at MIT, Cornell University, and the Italian National Research Council’s Institute for Informatics and Telematics present a new technique that enabled them to exhaustively analyze 150 million trip records collected from more than 13,000 New York City cabs over the course of a year.
Their conclusions: If passengers had been willing to tolerate no more than five minutes in delays per trip, almost 95 percent of the trips could have been shared. The optimal combination of trips would have reduced total travel time by 40 percent, with corresponding reductions in operational costs and carbon dioxide emissions.
“Of course, nobody should ever be forced to share a vehicle,” says Carlo Ratti, professor of the practice in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and one of the paper’s coauthors. “However, our research shows what would happen if people have sharing as an option. This is more than a theoretical exercise, with services such as Uber Pool bringing these ideas into practice.”
The Latest on: Ride sharing
- Voting in Delhi? You can avail a free ride back home with Rapidoon May 9, 2024 at 6:41 am
In an effort to boost voter turnout, Delhi’s chief electoral officer P. Krishnamurthy on May 9 announced an option of free ride from polling booths to home for eligible voters in Delhi. Krishnamurthy ...
- Will Tesla Disrupt The Ride Sharing Market?on May 9, 2024 at 3:30 am
The self-driving threat sounds scary for existing ride-sharing players such as Uber and Lyft. Investors following Musk lately might think that this is an existential risk for Uber's business that ...
- Uber Slumps, Lyft Soars. Why the Ride-Sharing Stocks Are Headed in Opposite Directions.on May 8, 2024 at 1:44 pm
It’s a tale of two ride-sharing stocks. While Lyft shares are rallying Wednesday following a well-received March quarter earnings report, shares of Uber Technologies are losing ground in response to ...
- Infobip Partners with Bolt to Deliver Secure Ride-sharingon May 8, 2024 at 12:00 am
Leading ride-sharing company Bolt prioritizes security and innovation for drivers and customers. It was exploring Two Factor Authentication (2FA) delivery options via rich media channels that could ...
- News 2 You: Ride sharing comes to Buffalo, an infamous case of corporal punishment, a disappointing solar eclipseon May 6, 2024 at 9:12 am
Just as in the recent case of the total solar eclipse people were quite excited to see it. However, similar to what ...
- Positive Parenting: Sharing failureson May 6, 2024 at 2:53 am
“Most adults are nervous about their teenagers driving, so adults have to be aware of their fear, and how their children perceive that from them, too,” said Desiree Farragher, a clinical social worker ...
- Newest Filipino ride-sharing company aims to make its markon May 4, 2024 at 9:31 am
THE latest participant in the growing market is Unified Transport Operations League (UTOL), a 100-percent Filipino-owned and operated transport network company that aims to strike a balance in ...
- ‘I know that ride was silent as hell’: Customer swears off Uber Share after seeing who he has to ride withon May 4, 2024 at 9:00 am
Uber Share or UberX Share is used when several customers are picked up that are headed in the same direction. The rider requests a ride share and can share a ride with two other people. But TikTok ...
- My View: Ride-sharing can be a starting point for many fascinating conversationson May 1, 2024 at 5:00 pm
When we arrived at our destination we didn’t want it to end. We’d made a new friend and had a most enjoyable experience. Ride sharing provides a much needed service and sometimes it comes with ...
- Lyft’s CEO on Layoffs, Leading With Purpose and the Future of Ride-Sharingon April 28, 2024 at 4:00 am
W hen David Risher took over as CEO of Lyft about a year ago, the company was losing market share and struggling with morale. Its stock price was approaching an all-time low, down nearly 90% from its ...
via Bing News