How HOVER got started

HOVER (High Occupancy Vehicles in Express Routes) is a transport innovation that was inspired in Auckland, New Zealand, in response to severe congestion and a proposal to implement road pricing (implementing new tolls where none existed before, to convince people to change mode or time of travel, and to raise revenues). A city manager observed that “if everyone shared a ride one day a week there would be 20% less traffic”, and the inventor of HOVER decided to design a system to make that possible while also being convenient and easy to use. (HOVER is an acronym for ‘High Occupancy Vehicles in Express Routes’).

The goal was a dynamic system that required no specific pre-planning or organisation on the part of the participant, no commitment to participate on any given day, and no requirement to be there at a given time.

The result is a sort of facilitated ‘park and pool’ system that works because of the very reason we have congestion: lots of people are driving cars to very similar destinations, and those cars have empty seats. In order to work it needs a ‘park and ride’ style of facility, that should be funded the same way that buses and roads are funded.

That’s when the hard work starts, to get a city or regional transportation authority to adopt the system and build the facilities. And that is where we are today, with several cities looking at the concept, thinking about doing feasibility studies, hopefully leading to a demonstration project (to prove whether it will work or not), as a pre-cursor to (perhaps) doing a full-scale implementation.

Our confidence in the system stems from having found an ‘un-facilitated system’ in operation in San Francisco (Casual Carpooling) and Virginia and Washington DC (Slug-lines). HOVER adds layers of security for participants, parking and security for their cars, the HOVER Ride Credit system for benefit sharing, facilitated return journey, and overall facilitation on top of those existing un-facilitated systems.

An estimated 9,000 people participate daily as a driver or passenger across the Bay Bridge into downtown San Francisco, and some have been doing this since it started in the early 1970’s. HOVER seeks to provide a value proposition to those who wouldn’t use the casual system.