“Real-Time” Ridesharing – The Opportunities and Challenges of Utilizing Mobile Phone Technology to Improve Rideshare Services

摘要

In recent years, an innovative ridesharing service relying heavily on advanced mobilephone technologies known as “real-time” ridesharing, or “dynamic” ridesharing has gained inpopularity among some groups, namely providers and organizations/employers. Traditionally,rideshare arrangements between two or more unrelated individuals for commuting purposes ha45 vebeen relatively inflexible, long-term arrangements. “Real-time” ridesharing attempts to provideadded flexibility to rideshare arrangements by allowing drivers and passengers to arrangeoccasional shared rides ahead of time or on short notice. The addition of this service innovationpresents a number of opportunities to overcome existing rideshare challenges, but also leads tonew challenges.The overall goal of this study is to provide a foundation upon which further “real-time”ridesharing research can take place. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to, first, identify,highlight, and discuss the potential benefits of and obstacles to real-time ridesharing, and second,to point to next steps to better understand and possibly advance this mode of travel if theimproved understanding reveals a sufficiently large market that could result in significantbenefits.The paper begins with a definition of “real-time” ridesharing and follows with acomprehensive categorization of the challenges hindering greater rideshare participation. Theinformation gathered suggests that rather than being a single challenge to be overcome, the‘rideshare challenge’ is a series of economic, behavioral, institutional and technologicalobstacles to be addressed. The potential opportunities, and obstacles, created by “real-time”innovations are then highlighted. The paper concludes with several recommended ‘next steps’ tofurther understand how rideshare participants use “real-time” services, focusing specifically onthe need for multiple, comprehensive “real-time” rideshare trials.