In a media landscape so awash with legislative warfare and the astronomical seed funding associated with taxi and taxi-sharing startups, it’s easy to forget where shareholders’ interests end and real societal benefit begins.
The taxi industry has successfully been disrupted, and those of us seeking short-range, on-demand transportation solutions have never had so many options. But why is nobody talking about the commute? Rush hour is the very cause of crippling congestion on our roads, but it appears that the real challenge facing transportation simply isn’t lucrative enough for most.
Behind the scenes, Carma is busy working on a different kind of transportation movement – one that offers real benefit to commuters as a whole, and not just those who can afford taxi alternatives. The Carma Carpooling app has a sole purpose of increasing occupancy as a means to solving the daily nightmare that is the commute.
We’re not interested in the ‘for-hire’ model – we’re interested in putting an end to traffic. Our potential for truly improving the lives of frustrated commuters is mind-boggling. With almost 10 million trips scheduled for this year alone, Carma users hold the key to a transportation revolution on a scale which has never been seen.
It is common knowledge that traffic congestion is a non-linear problem. For example, studies have shown that a 2-5% reduction in peak-hour traffic volumes can lead to a 27%-35% reduction in total traffic delay (source: “Mitigation of expressway traffic congestion through transportation demand management with toll discount” Xing, J. ; Tokyo, Japan ; Takahashi, H. ; Kameoka, H. Published in IET Intelligent Transport Systems, 2009).
America’s infrastructure is in disrepair, but we only have a dime to solve a dollar problem. We need to get more out of our existing system and one way to do that is to increase average occupancy. However, current Federal policies are based on how many cars we can move not how many people we can move. Carma is calling on Congress to pass a transportation bill that is outcome focused and based on system performance. All it takes is an increase in average occupancy from 1.1 to 1.3. That’s a relatively small change, but it’s not going to happen by itself. Transportation authorities must urgently start thinking about their transportation system in terms of moving people rather than moving cars.
Innovation will help improve our transportation system and reduce the financial burden of the government. But, piloting and deploying these innovations needs to be a focus of a transportation bill. We are pleased the House and Senate leadership have made innovation a top priority for a transportation bill and we plan on working with those leaders to support such efforts.