SMART’s Distinguished speakers

SMART Presentation Summary

A commercial venture, Trip Convergence Ltd has a mission of making it easier and more rewarding for people to share rides, and a vision in which people have more family time, and more money in their pockets, and cleaner air to breathe, while transportation authorities are under less pressure to expand the transportation infrastructure. This brave new world is brought about by widespread use of flexible carpooling. There would be 20% less traffic if everyone shared a ride one day a week.

Unlike internet based and other ride-matching systems and traditional carpooling systems that create a straightjacket for participants, flexible carpooling involves no daily pre-arrangement. Participants have to be members of the system, and are ‘pre-screened’ for safety purposes. Technology is used to identify riders and vehicles in the system, and participation is tracked so that valuable ‘ride credits’ can be transferred between riders and drivers. A flexible carpooling implementation involves establishing a route and signing up members for that route. Each day members can decide to participate or not, can then decide to be a driver or rider, can show up when they are ready, and can change their mind about all of the above without having to tell anyone. It all works because of the critical mass of people making the same journey, from the suburban area to the employment destination (for example, a city central business district). Informal examples exist (slug-lines in DC, and casual carpooling in San Francisco) which do not have the membership, safety, parking, ride credit, or technology components of the system outlined, but have 9,000 daily participants (3,000 carpools) operating from what we refer to as ‘taxi stands for carpoolers’.

We have developed the technologies for flexible carpooling and it has some other potential uses, including any situation where a benefit might be bestowed for having more than one person in a car: HOT lanes, carpool parking, etc. We are seeking locations for ‘proof of concept’ trials, and at the date of the lecture had been offered funds by WSDOT to do a trial project in Seattle. We are also seeking $5 million from equity investors to help us further develop our business model. The lecture included a demonstration of the technology for tracking participation, as well as a three minute animation of the system that is available at www.hoverport.org as a YouTube video.

• View his PowerPoint presentation (pdf)

Links

www.flexiblecarpooling.org
www.tripconvergence.com
www.hoverport.org
www.lesscarsinnewyork.com

Biography

Canadian. Certified General Accountant (Canada), Associate Chartered Accountant (New Zealand), MBA (Auckland). Financial controller (various employers). Strategy and process improvement consultant (KPMG). Own strategy consulting business, Strategic Lift Ltd. Chairman, Precision Marine Ltd. Innovative ‘big picture’ person.

Founded Trip Convergence Ltd together with Kiwi John Pearce in 2004 to exploit concept of formalized flexible carpooling. Patent granted NZ 2007, pending in other countries. Has led development of the business including seeking locations for trials, and equity funding for growth (both still works in progress!).

Born in the UK, grew up in Canada, worked in Botswana as a CUSO volunteer business advisor, now over 20 years living in New Zealand. Married to Ingrid (nee Turman, from Vancouver), with children Vincent (currently at UBC, Vancouver) and Pamela (co-founder of www.ymediagroup.org).

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