Weeels

I recently read an article about how taxis complement the public...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:34:46 -0500

I recently read an article about how taxis complement the public transit system in large cities yet are not well-integrated into the urban transit networks. It centers primarily around David King’s research work. King, an assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University, conducted an experiment to map a major city’s taxi activity over a 24-hour period. His team used GPS data from New York City and sampled almost 200,000 taxi trips. The result of this experiment shows an asymmetrical pattern of taxi usage.

“A New Yorker can take the subway to work, walk to a bar, then cab it home, and many do just that every day,” to cite the article. Moreover, NYC has a 24-hour subway service, which is an exception, not the rule, among subway systems. In cites where there is no round the clock service, commuters are even more likely to hail a cab to reach home after a late night out. In such cases there is greater taxi usage pattern.

King and his colleagues claim that ” taxis are a critical aspect of a transit system as they enable car-less travelers to switch modes in the middle of a journey.” But it is disappointing to see that there is very little done to integrate cabs in a city’s transit system, both from a policy perspective and from the perspective of infrastructure development. Though not mentioned in this article, sharing taxicabs, and reducing the price of for-hire-vehicles(FHV’s), is yet another way to integrate taxi service & expand the connectivity of transit networks.

Expensive Tolls Encourage New Ways of Commuting

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:41:00 -0500

Photo Source: http://www.thelakewoodscoop.com/

As we were welcoming the new year, busily unwrapping our presents, and making well-meaning new year’s resolutions last week, the New Jersey state government stuck to its own resolution — to increase highway tolls. On January 1, toll prices on New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway surged by 53 and 50 percent respectively. Not exactly festive good news for tens of thousands of drivers that take these routes to commute daily.

Before fingers started pointing, NJ Governor Chris Christie immediately went on record to say that he had nothing to do with toll increases and that it was largely his predecessor Jon Corzine’s doing. (Corzine was recently in the news when his company MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection.) Governor Corzine had approved these rates in 2008, and they were impossible to roll back because the state had already sold bonds based on the expected revenue, said Christie, a budget hawk. These toll hikes are supposed to help fund structural improvements and other infrastructure restoration projects.

After the new tolls went into effect on the New Year’s day, the New York Times published an assessment by two of its reporters, in which they compared cost and time of two transit routes. Going to the same destination, one of the reporters took the toll-less route, while the other took the New Jersey Turnpike. The driver who skipped all the toll booths and took a slightly more circuitous route ended up saving money but lagged considerably in time, spending almost an hour traveling. Meanwhile, the other reporter, who paid the new tolls on the Turnpike, took 37 minutes, saving almost 20 minutes compared to the other driver. This of course is not a rigorous comparison, as the travel time depends on various factors, including traffic flow, congestion, speed, etc, but it gives a rough guide to the tradeoff. According to this experiment— “a driver could save about $3200 in tolls by avoiding the NJ turnpike all year, but would spend about 160 hours doing it, earning $20/ hr if driver’s time is really money.” quoted as in NYT .

While these toll hikes are a real kick in the teeth for car commuters, there might be an upside to the story. The expensive toll prices might influence drivers to seek alternative modes of transportation or carpool, which could save individuals money and time, especially if New Jersey dedicated certain access lanes for HOV only. While It may not be ideal to let budget deficits drive transportation policies, it seems to us like good sense to use the opportunity to encourage good commuting behavior. Doing so will raise money, decrease the wear and tear cars inflict on our built and inherited environments.

Growing pains for mass-transit commuters

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:40:00 -0500

Yesterday, December 19, NY Senator Charles Schumer made an announcement saying the pretax commuter benefit, which can be worth more than $1,000 per household per year, was about to expire at the end of 2011. With a loss of $250 million in the MTA’s budget due to a cut to the MTA payroll tax, and a projected hike in mass transit prices in the coming year, New Yorkers, who rely on mass-tranist as their primary transit option, are faced with mounting costs.

The commuter benefit is an employer-provided tax break that allows workers to save money on their daily commute. This break covers up to $230 per month from a person’s annual salary for his/her mass transit commute or parking for those who drive. There is also some tax relief for sharing a van pool or even bicycling. Weirdly, car commuters also get these tax benefits—which are not being cut at the end of the year.

In other words, a solo driving is being incentivized by the NY State legislature, along with environmental degradation and congestion. Anyone out there know why? It’s a real question, we don’t understand this…

In the United States, struggling with 8.6% national unemployment...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:54:00 -0500

In the United States, struggling with 8.6% national unemployment rate and an economy slowly recovering from the worst recession America has had seen since the Great Depression, the need for pooling resources and working collectively is greater than ever before. While the nation’s largest companies continue to lobby for privatization of the internet, a new generation of entrepreneurs are finding ways to use the internet for what it was intended: sharing.

“Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth”, by Juliet Schor is one among many new serious explorations of how the structural underpinning of today’s economy and society need to change to make the living more sustainable (also more just, & flat-out healthier and happier). Schor, a Boston College sociologist, argues that we need to work collaboratively in building social capital, moving away from “Business-as-Usual” or BAU, which is driven by values of high production and high spending. One way to divest from BAU is by, you guessed it: sharing, renting and exchanging resources, thereby increasing our investment in “Social Capital” and building communities that nurture collaborative consumption, DIY and open-source attitudes and methods. All trends that are gaining & will continue to gain popularity (eventually becoming necessities) as available resources and traditional capital markets wither.

In sum, economic and environmental instability and growing concern for the future of the global commons, have led to a wave of creativity and innovation focused on sharing, reusing, recycling and reselling goods and services; Weeels is very proud to be part of this movement.

Drive train: Could we make our highways more efficient by turning them into "railways"?

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:31:00 -0500

I recently stumbled upon an innovative website called Undriving.org which promotes and educates the public about the benefits of not driving. But that’s not always possible. This got me thinking of a world where you didn’t actually have to drive. Google’s much hyped autonomous car is one approach, of course. But it’s not the first solution to hands-free driving.

Vehicle Platooning, according to the Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) project, is a concept in which a lead vehicle, led by professional driver, drives a convoy of other vehicles or platoons. Each individual vehicle connects wirelessly to the moving platoon, thus forming a road train. All of this is made possible by the IEEE 802.11p wireless standard. Once the vehicle is in the platoon, the individual drivers (now passengers) relinquish their control over their vehicles and can enjoy a break, catch on some reading or even take a nap.

Road trains have been in developmental stages since the 1990’s both in the US and in Europe. If successful, these systems improve travel safety, fuel efficiency and mileage, while addressing greater challenges and concerns such as air pollution, and carbon emission, not to mention the stress of driving. It also significantly increases highway throughput (vehicles per lane per hour) which reduces road congestion.

Unfortunately scientists feel the technology is not quite up to speed, and apart from the technical challenges, there are regulatory concerns, and behavioral challenges. Would you trust a wi-fi enabled computer to drive your car over the Broklyn Bridge? I’m on the fence here. Road trains have been successfully tested once before with two vehicles and will be tested again early next year with four platoons. (Watch this video for a demo)

But in general, we’re excited by this. Companies like Weeels, Avego and Zimride are proving that there are benefits to people working together to share rides. Why shouldn’t cars work together to share roads?

Dear Weeels Crew, Just want to take a quick moment to introduce myself. Hi. My name is Ro...

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:51:00 -0500

Dear Weeels Crew,

Just want to take a quick moment to introduce myself.

Hi. My name is Ro Purushotham, and I am the newest addition to the Weeels team, here at the NYC ACRE Incubator.

Prior to joining Weeels, I worked on web development and user interaction at Last Exit, an international digital agency in New York, only a couple of blocks from Weeels’ office. Earlier this year, I graduated with a master of science degree from New York University where I pursued my interests in wireless networks, mobile media, and web programming at NYU’s Polytechnic Institute and Interactive Telecommunications Program. I am originally from Bangalore, India; I now live in Long Island City, and love New York.

I’ll be tweeting and blogging and facebooking about the latest news on emerging sustainable technologies, politics and policies of being green, transportation alternatives, and the goings on in this amazing city of ours. It should be loads of fun. Of course, Weeels is a two-way street (pun intended). So please reach out to me @weeels or ro@weeels.org if you’ve got any ideas or issues you’d like Weeels to investigate, or news that you’d like us to broadcast/rebroadcast.

Until my next beep, your fellow Weeeler,

Ro Purushotham

Social Media Director, Weeels

Weeels Now Lives at NYC ACRE

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:00:05 -0400

Weeels is working on a better way to get around the city with others. To do that, we figured a good place to work well with others too would be useful too.

Weeels is now in residence at the New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy. NYC ACRE is an incubator for clean technology and renewable energy start-up companies that are helping to transition New York City to a low-carbon future. Chosen through a rigorous selection process, NYC ACRE brings together the most promising New York clean-tech entrepreneurs and fosters their growth through a suite of supportive services.

An NYU-Poly initiative, the incubator was seeded by a four year, $1.5M grant from the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA) aimed at growing an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, international companies, and innovative local businesses that provide solutions to climate and energy issues while growing the cleantech/renewable energy sector and creating jobs in NYC.

We’re really grateful to be operating in a city that understands the role that the sharing economy plays in both sustainable environmental and economic future, and to be working in a place alongside amazing projects and people. You can read more about the incubator here, and our fellow tenants here.

Efficiency is Rewarding

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:09:44 -0400

NuRide, a self-regulated incentive program that allows participants to track green trips and collect rewards, recently partnered with Avego, a ridesharing application that matches drivers with riders going to similar locations. It’s nice to see companies that espouse efficiency & sharing, working together toward a common interest.

According to NuRide, 1.1 billion trips are taken every day, 78% of which are solo drivers with empty seats in their cars. In their effort to discourage this behavior, NuRide awards 100 points for every green trip a member makes. These trips include walking, biking, using public transportation, telecommuting, carpooling, or ridesharing. Points can then be redeemed for real rewards, mostly in the form of coupons to chains such as Quiznos, Brookstone, and 1-800 Flowers.

Here’s our take on this: great first step, keep it coming, more rewards, better rewards.

In other words: we’re looking forward to the day when ride-sharing becomes the incentive in itself. And it’s already happening in locations with progressive traffic management policies. Two locations that come to mind immediately are San Francisco & Washington DC. In San Francisco, crossing the Bay Bridge with three or more passengers lets you bypass the toll and gives you access to the car pool lane. Similarly DC, “slugging” has been getting people into the city more efficiently for about 35 years.

In San Francisco and DC, successful ride-shares reward commuters immediately: by making commuting is faster. And both of these successes are predicated on progressive HOV policies. As transportation policy progresses, the need for additional incentive programs will decrease, but in the meantime, keep the coupons coming.

Upcoming Traffic Light Predictor Application Turns the Conversation Towards Critical Mass

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:46:00 -0400

Ever wish you could magically turn traffic lights green whenever you approach? Well now you can, sort of. SignalGuru is an new application for smart phones that fundamentally alters the relationship between drivers and traffic lights, and in so doing reduces stop-and-go traffic, fuel consumption, and traffic jams.

Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA), the technology behind SignalGuru, is an onboard computational system that alerts drivers to the schedule of traffic signals ahead. Drivers can then adjust their speed in order to avoid having to stop at upcoming intersections. In the future, Signal Guru could also be augmented to include rerouting software that would instruct drivers to duck down a side street to avoid a traffic jam, or tell users where to find parking.

But GLOSA cannot work individually; its most effective when connected to other GLOSA devices. Sound familiar? Instead of using transportation information to help passengers share rides, SignalGuru uses the network effect to create a virtual traffic light map of an area: ie to help cars share roads.

And it appears to be working. Margaret Martonosi and Emmanouil Koukoumidis of Princeton University, and Li-Shiuan Peh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tested the app on drivers in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Singapore. It proved to be, respectively, 98.2% and 96.3% accurate at predicting traffic lights and fuel consumption was reduced by an average 20%.

Looking forward to the day when SignalGuru will be able to pull info from the Weeels API: drivers could beat traffic lights by slowing down to pick up rideshare passengers — killing two inefficient behaviors with one mobile stone, I mean phone.

Link to academic paper about SignalGuru: http://bit.ly/osWVPV

The L train is in a New Yorker cartoon. And it is funny. Also:...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 01:12:46 -0400

The L train is in a New Yorker cartoon. And it is funny. Also: sad.

starlab:

new york I love you but

newyorker:

A subway-themed Cartoon of the Day.

Enter this week’s Cartoon Caption Contest.

From Blexbolex’s children’s book Seasons. This...

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:18:38 -0500

From Blexbolex’s children’s book Seasons.

This one’s called “Traffic Jam.”

Taxi drivers' routes help crowd-source faster trips

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:08:37 -0500

Taxi drivers' routes help crowd-source faster trips:

Finer measurements make us smarter. And cab drivers, who know cities better than other drivers, offer lots of useful measurements.

opentransportation:

Technology Review investigates:

The researchers analyzed GPS data of 33,000 Beijing taxis in hopes of finding faster driving routes that would even be practical for people who don’t drive at taxi speed or swerve recklessly between lanes. “These factors are very subtle and difficult to incorporate into existing routing engines,” says Yu Zheng, a researcher at Microsoft Research Asia. Zheng is an author on the paper describing the approach, called T-Drive, which is being presented this week at the International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, in San Jose, California.
Current drive-time predictions on online maps rely on the length of road and the posted speed limit. Some services will inform drivers that the route takes longer in traffic, but that doesn’t help someone who wants to know the fastest route from point A to point B, even if that route might look longer because it takes unexpected side streets. “This is the reality of all the Web maps,” says Zheng.

Nokia is doing something along these lines too, collecting GPS data from people’s cell phones while they drive to provide traffic information about side roads. MIT’s CarTel project in Boston uses sensors on cars. And the Silicon Valley startup Waze lets people share their real-time driving paths with their online social networks, to help others choose faster routes based on current conditions.

Adding Cabbie Know-How to Online Maps.

If we're going to build new roads, we need to build better ways of using them too

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:54:33 -0500

AT New Geography, Aaron Renn argues — somewhat controversially to most of us urbanists — about the need for more roads in a still-rapidly urbanizing America. Of course, he notes, the roads need to be better than what we currently have, and must be complemented by public transit options, so that roads don’t simply invite more congestion or urban blight.

What he alludes to, but doesn’t mention: the need for smarter ways of using roads too, though approaches like crowd-sourced social transit.

Keep in mind that tomorrow’s roads need not resemble yesterday’s monstrosities. The days of simplistically adding lanes while neglecting basics like enclosed drainage, sidewalks and paths, bus shelters, and aesthetics are likely over in many parts of the country. We need to provide room for the traffic we need to accommodate without excessive over-designs for a 15 minute peak of the peak, or dehumanizing roadway design approaches. Reform of our civil engineering educational system is eminently doable as plenty of great examples of suburban roadway design already exist. Federal standards need a revamp as well. We need to build not just more, but also better roads.
With a botched stimulus, huge deficits at the federal and state level, and a public that has decisively turned against those deficits, a major construction program seems unlikely at this time. But in a couple years the economy should be back and a plan for fiscal recovery put in place and under execution. If not, we’ll have much bigger problems than roads.

But assuming we get past this moment, we need to be laying the groundwork for a major continuation of the long history of American investment in infrastructure, from the Erie Canal to the interstate highway system. This includes not only a significant boost in urban transit spending where appropriate, but also a major program of both roadway repair and quality expansion, particularly in our growing metro regions. And as the Indiana example of a Toll Road lease shows, this doesn’t all have to come from tax dollars. Without this investment, our critical transport networks will ultimately seize up and America cannot hope to be competitive globally over the long haul.

California Bill Gives OK to Personal Car Sharing

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 17:01:08 -0500

The bill would limit the circumstances under which the motor vehicle owner’s automobile liability insurance can be subject to liability, and require that automobile insurance policies not be canceled, voided, terminated, rescinded, or nonrenewed solely on the basis that the private passenger motor vehicle has been made available for personal vehicle sharing.

— From AB 1871, a bill signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger in September that paves the way for services like City CarShare, Spride, Gettaround, RelayRides, Go-op Inc. and Divvy.com to enable car owners to share their personal cars without breaching their insurance policies. The bill goes into effect on January 1.

Brilliant. Go, go social transit.

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:50:41 -0500

Yes, I think so too.

doitdoitdoitnow:

FOR REAL!

Copyright © 2009 Maxim Dalton

http://www.maximdalton.com/

Weeels on Collaborative Consumption

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:41:42 -0500

Collaborative Consumption, the blog for the book What’s Mine is Yours, has a nice little Q&A with David, Weeels co-founder:

I believe it’s the right moment for Weeels to take off because …
it must, it can, and sooner is better than later. Fuel costs are on the rise, Americans have less money to spend, geo-mobile and information technology are more sophisticated and more prevalent, social networks have made sharing easier, and more and more people are concerned about their fuel waste and pollution.

Read more and see other great share-loving pioneers at Collaborative Consumption, and see a list of other examples here.

The Road Train Will Mean Driving Without Hands

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 01:45:48 -0500

If apps like Weeels are about sharing vehicles better, the road train concept — a platoon of cars led automatically down the highway by a “leader” car — is about sharing the road better.

This isn’t science fiction. As we wrote last year, the idea is “to link cars up in a kind of contact-less highway conga line, eliminating the potential for congestion, reducing crashes, maximizing cars’ fuel efficiency, accelerating the journey, and also, of course, taking the whole ‘driving’ thing out of driving.

In Europe, the idea of cars that drive themselves is being forged by the European Union’s Safe Road Trains for the Environment (Sartre) initiative, which plans to have a real-world test with a single following car by the end of 2010.

While the technologists are confident about the safety of such a system, the sensation of sitting behind the wheel fully lost in a movie or a newspaper will probably take drivers some getting used to (but probably not too much). Just buckle your seatbelts everyone.

It’s caring. doitdoitdoitnow: on the fridge of a house i...

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:37:47 -0500

It’s caring.

doitdoitdoitnow:

on the fridge of a house i partied at on saturday

This Is What New York's Next Taxi Will Look Like

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:38:00 -0500

What will the next New York City taxi look like? NYC’s Taxi of Tomorrow finalists were announced last week — designs from Nissan, Ford and Karsan (in order above) — and to find a winner, the Taxi and Limousine Commission has opened voting up to everyone. One voter will win a year of cab rides.

The three finalists offer increased interior space, ease of entering and exiting, attractive exterior, interior electrical outlets, sunroofs, and interior lighting.

But of course, hardware means nothing without good software. When we talk about tomorrow, it’s important to remember that while vehicles themselves are an important part of delivering reliable service to New Yorkers, service and systems design — like what we’re working on at Weeels — will have a huge role to play in how we use vehicles in the city. That means improving the way we hail, share, and pay for our rides.

Go vote — and keep in mind a car that will be easiest to share (that Karsan jumpseat is pretty awesome)!

Great Piece About Weeels at Grist

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 11:36:00 -0500

“Cars already exist,” said Mahfouda. “As a designer, the most responsible thing is to reuse and redesign what we have. So we looked at broadly repurposing cars.”

There’s a great piece about Weeels at Grist by Sarah Goodyear, which hits on a lot of reasons why smarter transportation is both desired and important right now, from the need for faster and more efficient ways to get around our cities to the need to cut back on waste.