PowerSwitch

Have you heard of ZipCars, it's an american company that uses 'Smart' technology so that peaple can car share and timeshare vehicles, users only pay for what they use!

Think of it most cars carry one person to work wait 8-9 hours and then return!

With a Smarter infrasturcture that car could be shared with others, cost the user less and take up less parking space!

Add in newer electrical charge points and we could revolutionise how we use cars.

Need a people carrier at the weekend and a mini during the week no problem!

It's an old idea but one which won't take off while petrol is still under a fiver a litre (or gallon in the states). And maybe not even then.

Unfortunately most people want a car at the same time...

I need mine at between 8am and 9am... and then at 5pm to 6pm.

You may have noticed that the roads are tollerable between 10am and 4pm and then again at 6pm through to 7am.

Good idea if we can get everyone to work at different times.

Perhaps this could be a way to get even more people onto the planet? A new class structure... "wow, I went out with Brad and he's a day shifter", "really? I'm on the mid shift and I never get to meet guys like that!"

[parody] Have you ever heard of buses, made and run by quiite a few differnet companies, which use time-honoured existing technology so that people can share vehicles and only pay for what they use?

Think of it, most cars (of any sort) clog up the road and cause traffic jams due to their sheer volumes.

With incresed size of vehicle, it can be shared with others and take up less space on the road! (But it may cost more).

Add in extra services and lower fares and we could revolutionise the way we use transport altogether!

Need an all-purpose vehicle to get you where you need to go at any time which you don't even have to drive? No problem! [/parody]

The point? Any solution which involves cars and fancy new technology is really unnecessary, and often counter-productive. Yet utilising the public transport we have already is not without problems, leading to the typical Catch-22 situation (we'd use the buses if the service was better, but instead we have to end up using cars which makes the bus services worse due to lack of profitability).

The kind of technology I'm thinking of would work even better with a smart bus network.

Example case, you need to go somewhere...

iTransit pad, select destination, search available transit options and prices, choose based on your criteria price/speed.

The pad lets you know exactly where your connections are and where your bus/car is at this moment in time.

Smart bus and car systems can flex to user demand, current bus routes send buses round regardless of capacity, a smart bus system could adapt it's route and times to maximise efficiency.

If you join the dot's for all the transit systems and add in pay as you go cars/bikes ect!

You could serously reduce your c02 and massivly reduce price, and it's just adding in some software and gps hardware, and smart bus stops!

After I posted that I was thinking about buses being in some way inefficient- there are times where you get on a bus and they're almost empty, and times when they're crowded to capacity. My first thought was if more people were using more frequent bus services, and it was timetabled properly to meet demand, most of these problems would disappear.

But I suppose any pre-planned service has its limitations, and some kind of setup which employs 'smart' programming might eliminate any flaws in the planning, any unpredictabilities.

I doubt you'd want to install a booking machine at every single bus stop- that's far too expensive. More likely you'd have some sort of internet-based system (which might incorporate mobile device 'apps' or perhaps some sort of over-the-telephone system for those who don't know how to use newer technology) which either tells you where buses are, or pre-books them to come to you. You might in the former case then tell the driver where to go, who would key it into some sort of route-planning/sat-nav system telling him the best route to take. (I'd hope drivers might not be eliminated entirely by yet another new wave of technology- it increases unemployment if temporarily).

All this technology requires energy to manufacture and run, too...

'Joining the dots' is one thing, but I don't know if all these bike or car sharing schemes don't have their limitations. what if you get to one point in your journey and find they're all gone? Where are you going to park or store all these things? Who owns and runs all these schemes, and how do you get them working together?

Plus I think there is a reason buses work like they do, and are not just large taxis. You don't just ring for a bus and hope one will be around sometime shortly. You expect one to turn up at the appointed time (though in practice they rarely ever do!) Also, they are really restricted to main roads, and if the route changes, there are more people on the bus to annoy if it doesn't go the route they want it to go.

I also mentioned buses over cars, mainly because I think cars are really not the answer to urban transport problems as it creates huge amounts of congestion and leaves main roads too busy to safely cycle on. That said, I suppose it is unfair on some to move to scrap private cars altogether (some people live too far away or cannot walk long distances due to age, but can still drive, or even might not use public transport for reasons of beief on certain days...). So I think the best way is not simply to have some sort of shared transport system, but simply to improvve the system we have already.[/i]

We've got a local Bwcabus, where you can arrange to be picked up anywhere within the area it covers.

I've started cycling more, as it's a pain turning my home back into a vehicle to travel a few miles. It's a great motivation! As it was wet today I used the bus to go into town, rather than cycling. There were only a few people on it in both directions over the 2.5 miles I was on it. I can't imagine any of the other passengers would have been on their bikes if it was dry. The peak time services are much busier, so overall having a bus service is probably far more efficient than not having one.

JohnB wrote:We've got a local Bwcabus, where you can arrange to be picked up anywhere within the area it covers.

I can't help but notice the somewhat hilarous Welsh-English pun there ('book-a-bus' perchance?) I think we've also got a similar service, also humerously titled: 'Community Lynx' which tends to serve people in the satelliite villages and outliying areas IIRC.

I've started cycling more, as it's a pain turning my home back into a vehicle to travel a few miles. It's a great motivation! As it was wet today I used the bus to go into town, rather than cycling. There were only a few people on it in both directions over the 2.5 miles I was on it. I can't imagine any of the other passengers would have been on their bikes if it was dry. The peak time services are much busier, so overall having a bus service is probably far more efficient than not having one.

Which really makes me think I need to cycle more. Obviously buses need to be there for those who can't easily cycle, or fr when cycling is inconvenient.

The fact that so few people end up on the less busy services could be easily alleviated if people were not quite so attached to their cars, I dare say, though even then, I wonder how convenient it is for working people to take buses for site-to-site transport? I'd suppose buses still need to be most frequent where there is most demand.