WSDOT Funds Flexible Carpooling

Auckland carpooling firm Trip Convergence Ltd has been offered a contract by the Washington State Department of Transport (WSDOT) to implement its innovative flexible carpooling system in the Seattle Region, the company announced today.

In what will be a proof of concept trial for the firm’s flagship product, up to 200 workers at Seattle’s SeaTac airport, who live near Federal Way to the south of Seattle (see map) will use flexible carpooling to get to work each day.  The fuller cars will be able to use the carpool lane on the I-5 to make the 12 mile journey more quickly.

Flexible carpooling is a membership system.  Members drive to a parking facility and form fuller cars in order of arrival.  This means that people could carpool with a different group of members every day.  To overcome safety concerns all applicants will be screened before becoming members.

The project is focused on reducing ‘drive-alone’ trips.  Lack of flexibility of start and finish times is often cited as a key reason for not joining carpools.  The system is therefore expected to make carpooling a much more convenient choice for a greater number of workers.

The project has the potential to eliminate 46,000 drive-alone trips each year.  At an average efficiency of 20 miles per gallon the savings would be 27,600 gallons of gasoline and associated tailpipe emissions, per year.  Reduction of the traffic on the I-5 would inevitably save other motorists some small amount of time, resulting in less idling and further fuel use and emissions reductions. 

Successful proof of concept is expected to result in adoption of the system by a large number of cities.  The company estimates that widespread use of the system could reduce the most congested traffic by up to 40%.

The system uses technology to track member participation and enable transferring ‘ride credits’ between riders and drivers.  These records will provide a reliable reporting of the actual impact of the project, and the company hopes to be able to use this to claim carbon credits on behalf of its members.

Trip Convergence makes money by charging a small fee each time the system is used.  This fee might be paid by the staff member or their employer.  The profit motive will ensure that best practice is spread rapidly, and every success will lead to greater savings of fuel, and improvement of environmental conditions.

The project is the result of collaboration between Trip Convergence Ltd and a group of Seattle area organisations including King County Metro, Puget Sound Regional Council, Cascadia Center, and the Seattle Port Authority.

Making the announcement, Paul Minett, CEO of Trip Convergence Ltd, said that the firm now needs to raise some equity or grant funding to enable it to sign the contract.  The company has a New Zealand patent over the system, and has a patent pending in the USA and other countries.  All going well the Seattle project will commence operation in March 2008.

The company is also in discussions with Transit New Zealand about implementing flexible carpooling on Auckland’s North Shore Busway, due to open in February 2008.  A number of other international cities are watching the Seattle project to help decide whether to develop flexible carpooling in their jurisdictions.