Buddy Up America

A Ride Sharing Utopia

Introduction

There is a common theme running through much of Community Service’s offerings on this website.  That common theme, subtle and not immediately obvious, is our tremendous use of fossil energy sources to fuel a geographically diffuse style of living.  Many of us have had the experience of living in a region where even the simplest errand requires traveling several miles.  A quart of milk requires either a car trip or several hours to walk to the market and back. Our current lifestyle can require the family car for everything, from finding playmates for our children to attending church to taking our refuse to the local dump.   

It is this pivotal point, the repetitive use of the automobile, where pressure can be brought to bear to change how Americans think and act about oil.  We have all seen rush hour traffic in which the vast majority of cars are occupied only by a single occupant.  For now, gasoline is still cheap enough that we use it to purchase this convenience.

But what if sharing cars was convenient, as well as efficient?  We could save enormous amounts of energy by attacking that portion of our energy expenditures which performs enormously redundant tasks, namely many people, driving individual vehicles to the same destinations. 

We asked ourselves how such efficiency might be created. One answer is to use our advanced technology to compile and disburse information about individual vehicles, their destinations, and their passengers. The use of such technology could, for the first time in history, halt the increase in per capita oil usage in the US.  Indeed, it could save enough oil to allow many additional years of transition between our centralized, city-based culture, and the decentralized, smaller communities envisioned by our founder, Arthur Morgan.

How do we get started? 

Once our country really feels the pinch of depleted oil reserves, early generation solutions will probably be imposed.  These solutions, already existing in many places in the world, include car pools, ride sharing, well managed and well maintained mass transportation systems, and better vehicle gasoline mileage. However, it is apparent that a state of denial exists in the industrialized world, and particularly in the United States, regarding the predictions of rapidly decreasing oil production later in this century.  It seems likely that the nation will not plan for such a program, and solutions will need to be radical and quick in their effectiveness.

We at Community Service imagine that something we call the Buddy Up America ride-sharing program could quickly be implemented. It is  based on using our existing transportation infrastructure of private vehicles but insuring that there is always more than one person per car, optimally 4-6 passengers. This country has no shortage of automobiles or roads, but the average passenger load of 1.1 people per vehicle per trip implies a huge consumption of fuel and massive traffic problems, which in itself increases fuel usage still further.

We believe that there will be a crisis because of the failure of the country to address this issue and that when this crisis comes, speed of change will be vital. There will be no time to develop something new and elaborate, or something that will be slow to implement and costly.  For many Americans, the crisis may appear sudden, as most people in the US want to believe in a limitless supply of fossil fuels. This belief is so strong that we may attack other nations to sustain it. The sudden awakening to the reality of depleted fossil fuels will require quick action, resulting in systems that use existing and widely available technology. The existing cell phone network can be tapped as the user interface between drivers, passengers, and the routing system. With a crisis mentality similar to that existing in WWII, computers and software experts from the nation’s Star Wars program and similar command and control communication systems can be reassigned to work with engineers and programmers from the nation’s Airline Reservation Systems.  These experts would produce the tracking and scheduling database for a new nationwide human transport system.  Satellites can be utilized on a time-sharing basis with our nation’s spies retrained to provide real-time input about traffic and weather conditions. The National Security Agency (NSA) “listening systems” could likewise be modified to provide information input to the new transportation system.

Citizens would have a modified cell phone including a Global Positioning System (GPS) function.  GPS technology is already being installed in some cell phones based on emergency response mandates from the federal government.

A special “vehicle cell phone”, based on an enhanced individual phone, would become a permanent part of each vehicle. It would include a fixed identification code for the vehicle as well as readout capability for location and speed (modified GPS), which could be triggered either by satellite systems or police and other emergency vehicles. 

The System Specifications

The goals for the Buddy Up America program would be to reduce auto gasoline usage by 80%, and to reduce commute time by an average of 50% in the first year. As the system is developed, a huge decrease in the number of vehicle accidents and fatalities could also be expected. This would, of course, result in substantially fewer payouts and, hopefully, a concurrent reduction in insurance premiums. Additionally, a major cost reduction would be incurred for the nation in road construction and maintenance. We expect that as people became aware of the benefits of such a system, any sense of sacrifice would diminish and be replaced with a sense of excitement.

To give a better idea of how this hypothetical Buddy Up America ride sharing system could work, we offer here a set of design requirements, that is, what exactly do we need it to do for it to work.  Often programmers and other technology workers, those same people who have the capacity to produce such a system, often begin a design with a review of the desired capabilities of the finished product.

Community Service sees nine major sets of design parameters in such a system.  While discussing all the myriad social and physical aspects of what we were trying to conceptualize, we began to refer to the nine sets of parameters as “rules”, and began describing the system in those terms. The major classes of rules were:

                        1. Function Rules              6. Privacy Rules

                        2. Vehicle Rules                7. Dispatching Rules

                        3. Driver Rules                   8. Fleet Rules

                        4. Passenger Rules           9. Reporting Rules

                        5. Police Rules                                                           

1. Function Rules

The Function Rules list all the capabilities that are required for the Buddy Up system to work. The main functions available would be:

1.      Ride request - entering time, location, and destination or using the memory for Most Frequent Destinations (MFD). It includes a profile of the ride requestor and other space requirements such as small freight as well as unusual requirements such as extra large physical size.

2.      Ride commitment - rider accepting an alternate time, location, and destination or an alternate one if the requested one is not quickly available.

3.      Ride arrival notification - alerting the passenger that the vehicle will arrive in 2 minutes, allowing time to get to the street.

4.      Check in - assuring that the correct passenger and driver have found one another.

5.      Check out - notification of the rider leaving the vehicle.

6.      Emergency - asking for police assistance in case of accident or illegal/improper confrontation.

7.      Transgression report - report smoking, drinking, or harassment violations.

8.      Radio turnoff/other special requests - requesting no music, smoking, news radio programs or other unwelcome stimuli. 

9.      Random ride request - available for pickup immediately at listed GPS locations.

10. Non-emergency accident notification - contacting dispatcher for towing services or accidents not requiring emergency service.

A person desiring a ride would enter the preferred time of departure and destination into his or her cell phone. In most cases this would be pre-programmed, including the typical time and destination for work or for school. The system would locate a vehicle with available seating which is close to the rider, and which will be going close to the desired destination at close to the desired time. The vehicle driver would receive and accept the request, and upon acceptance, receive directions. The requestor is informed as to the time of pickup and information about the driver and vehicle. His or her cell phone rings when the driver is two minutes driving time away (or whatever time stipulated by the requestor) so the rider can be ready for the pickup.

The rider would be delivered at or near his or her destination. If direct ride scheduling is not possible, the rider can accept the option to go to a place closer to his or her final destination and request a second or third ride to reach their final destination. In addition, a rider suddenly needing transportation, having been at an unscheduled activity, can request a ride at his or her current location based on the GPS location given automatically by the rider’s cell phone.

A successful system will have options to deal with accidents and transgressions by drivers or by other passengers. Having a “transgress” button on each cell phone to contact the authorities would prove a powerful deterrent to inappropriate behavior.  Using such a command on one’s phone could be a de- facto request for police to begin monitoring that vehicle as a further discouragement of aggression or malice. 

2. Vehicle Rules:

The vehicle rules apply to the actual automobile that both passengers and driver share.  A vehicle that is part of the Buddy Up America program would be termed a  Ride Share Vehicle (RHS).  The RHS’s role in the system would be to:

1.      Passenger Reporting - report passenger arrival times, departure times, and pickup and drop off locations.

2.      Vehicle Reporting - report its own location, average speed, and load factor changes.

3.      Other Vehicle Reporting - through use of radar or other technology, report other vehicles in unsafe proximity or otherwise being driven unsafely.

4.      Police response - respond to all police requests.

This reporting would be done via each Ride Share Vehicle’s (RHS) cell phone and the accumulated telemetry would aid the central system in planning and dispatching.

3. Driver Rules

Drivers would be volunteers in the community with excellent driving records who would be paid a stipend to cover auto expenses and depreciation. Accidents, police records, or moving violations would be considered potential grounds for suspension of driving privileges. The drivers would:

1.      Pick Up - Drop Off - pick up and drop off scheduled passengers

2.      Reporting No Shows - report no shows and any relevant information (tardiness, confusion about location).

3.      Behavior - report passenger comportment violations.

4.      Remuneration - Pay penalties and collect bonuses based on his or her success.

5.      Random Change - try to incorporate unplanned passengers, those needing spur of the moment rides, and unscheduled stops when requested to do so by the system.

The Driver’s reporting responsibility would work to weed out those citizens who are rude, habitual no-shows or late arrivals, or otherwise act as a drain on the efficiency of the system.

4. Passenger Rules

Passengers would go through an elementary screening process to determine their needs.  Records would be kept for each individual, including records of complaints or commendations from other members of the ride sharing community, both drivers and co-passengers.  Excessive violations would result in suspension or restriction of ride sharing access.  

The technical problems associated with such a vast new system are trivial compared with the human element. Americans are so isolated in their life styles that frequent social interactions with strangers are avoided, resulting in the need for a prescribed ethic of conduct.   Some rules might be simple, such as a no smoking rule. Others would be more controversial but necessary, such as a limit on perfume and a requirement for basic hygiene. 

The passenger’s part of the bargain would be to:

1.      Promptness - arrive promptly for pickups.

2.      Decorum - maintain a conversational decorum and basic politeness.

3.      Behavior - not smoking or playing personal media.

4.      Perfumes - avoid wearing perfume and be reasonably clean.

5.      Reporting - report violations of safety or dangerous conduct by others, drivers or other passengers.

A central database to correlate the upkeep of vehicles, misconduct by drivers, and notations about passengers could result in a community that is mostly self-policing through access to information and subsequent peer pressure. This would tend to limit the traveling options of those who insist on their right to behaviors not acceptable to all.

Such self-policing communities already exist, mostly among technology workers in online applications.  When access to desired community information can be restricted due to peer complaints, we have a rudimentary model upon which to base Buddy Up America’s protocol.

 5. Police Rules

Traffic control and vehicle law enforcement would be greatly simplified with the Buddy Up program. There is no doubt that traffic accidents and injuries would decrease if fewer cars used our highway system.  Law enforcement would:

1.      Ticketing - ticket moving vehicles remotely.

2.      Enforcement - stop vehicles, make arrests, investigate system violations.

3.      Investigate - perform corollary investigations involving use of the system for criminal activity.

The reporting functions built into the Ride Sharing Vehicles would allow law officers to ticket a vehicle, without stopping it, for speeding and other offenses. If a vehicle were ticketed in this manner, the driver would be immediately notified via the vehicle cell phone. Witnesses would be automatically available from the passenger records. Since the driver has his or her own identifying cell phone, the police could match the driver with the vehicle and access a database for driving or other records. With a properly designed system, this could be done in seconds. The police would be able to initiate a status read out from the cars under observation, easily identifiable visually from existing satellites.

The implementation of a high-level traffic monitoring and reporting system would have corollary effects on other crime that is not vehicular in nature.  When automobile escape routes from crime scenes are monitored as a matter of course, the criminal’s options become limited. Buddy Up’s personal cell phones, all equipped with emergency signal capacities, would give crime victims a chance to summon assistance. Unclogged transportation arteries, due to decreased vehicle traffic, would allow a quicker response time from emergency personnel. With proper legal review (available instantly) police could listen to remote situations via vehicle or personal cell phones. The result would hopefully be a drastic drop in crime rates with minimal invasion of the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

6. Privacy Rules

Since 9/11/01 the right to privacy in the face of increased civilian monitoring by government agencies has been in doubt.  Provisions would need to be made for Buddy Up’s tracking services to be used for traffic efficiency and crime detection only, and would not make such records available to any American secret police agency that might arise. The current political situation, including the approval by Congress of expanded wire-tapping powers by the Office of Homeland Security, makes privacy a sobering issue in the implementation of Buddy Up America.  Privacy laws would be needed to maintain:

1.      Confidentiality - keep trip records confidential except for criminal prosecution.

2.      Data Security - allow for the compilation of date to better manage the system while still protecting people’s privacy.

Community Service cannot stress enough that despite all the system requirements to report movements of citizens and vehicles, these records must be kept confidential.  They must only be made available based on appropriate requests from law enforcement personnel. However, we might suggest that there is so much information being gathered on people even now, that this change is less radical than it at first appears.

7. Dispatching Rules

Implementing Buddy Up America will require large start up costs, including vast amounts of human capital.  Dispatchers, particularly in the early days, will make or break the system.  Dispatchers will need to be responsible for:  

1.      Monitoring Equipment - monitor automobiles and trucks.

2.      Monitoring People - monitor for troublemakers and criminals.

3.      Responding - respond to drivers and passengers.

4.      Dispatching - dispatch vehicles and drivers and clear status of vehicles and drivers upon trip completion

5.      Contacting - contacting police/highway patrol/towing as necessary

6.      Rescheduling - reschedule passengers due to problems or sudden destination changes

Dispatchers and their reporting would bear the brunt of making the system work in the early stages, but could eventually become a supplement to properly functioning technology.  With real time operating experience to draw from and a fluid design, most functions could eventually become automated.  Dispatchers would become troubleshooters instead of the active schedulers.

8. Fleet Rules

Having the populace at large sharing private vehicles will necessitate certain minimum standards of care and maintenance.  Vehicles would require:

1.      Checking - checking on vehicles every few thousand miles.

2.      Certifying - certification for use within the ride sharing system.

3.      Recording  - keeping stringent detailed maintenance records.

4.      Incident Logging - accident or damage log.

Stringent rules would need to be set in place for the vehicles that could be used.  Most important would be the periodic safety inspections, which would become more extensive and frequent if the vehicle was in an accident.  Vehicles with expired certification or failed safety tests would be reported and removed from the system.

9. Reporting Rules

In order for a traffic system as complex as Buddy Up to function, it must adapt, which requires information about performance.  Thus reporting from all portions of the ride sharing community will be necessary to ensure efficiency and ease of use for all.  Reporting and analysis would allow the system to adapt to both regionalized travel phenomenon, like rush hours or weather disruptions, and to more generalized social transportation trends like summer vacations. Some of the reports that could be compiled from the databases might include:

1.      Personal travel report

2.      Driver travel report

3.      Vehicle travel report

4.      Average time waiting report

5.      Average gas mileage report

6.      Others

These extensive records would be automatically maintained and updated by the system. The information gained would optimize travel efficiency and  maintain a high quality of driver and passenger satisfaction.

Expected Results

We’ve seen in the preceding pages how changing America’s driving habits would save oil.  In other essays, Community Service has argued persuasively that we will be facing such belt-tightening measures sooner or later. What are some of the benefits we can expect from this increasing austerity?

Community Service feels that one of the largest changes will be to the way we socialize as individuals and groups.  We live in a time of great challenge, but our dependence on fossil fuels has stifled our innate human ability for cooperation as community beings. The result is a walling off, a distancing of one person from another that mirrors our increasing geographic isolation. We can break this pattern by re-socializing ourselves to interact with others, and by considering relationships more important than possessions.

Few would argue that some of the things Americans say they want, more time with their families, shorter workweeks and commutes, better quality and more carefully prepared food, are things that were in greater abundance in our past.  Those things are still available to us; we simply need to find creative ways, perhaps ways from our past, to implement them in our daily lives. 

As an example, many folks would not wish to attach a motor to a bicycle, and make this device their standard vehicle.  We have cars for that purpose, and the powered bike sounds suspiciously non-street legal under today’s driving statutes.

And yet a powered bicycle, still requiring some muscle power, used to commute to the community garden to fetch home organic produce, accomplishes several quality-of-life goals at a very low cost.  Furthermore, at some future point in our lives, sooner or later, such a bike will be a luxury. It is this creativity, this flexibility, this willingness to make do with less that is no longer part of our national character. We must recreate these characteristics in ourselves because the century-long party of wealth derived from fossil fuels will peak soon, and then diminish.

Our current transportation system, based one a one car-one driver model is going to change radically, and other systems and social institutions will be forced to change at the same time.  Our social landscape will change into something different, and hopefully better for all.

There are other, more tangible savings, such as money, time, and safety. These savings, brought about by our conservation measures, will result in great changes in how we work, live and play.    

Changes in Transportation

The far-reaching effects of minimizing car transportation are many.  Disadvantages we take for granted as part of our modern society can be handily eliminated.  

Accidents - Car accidents are the leading cause of death for many age groups. Almost 50,000 per year die, and 1 million are injured in the United States alone each year. Many of these lives could be saved. Fewer traffic fatalities and injuries, along with fewer deaths from automobile based air pollution would save us billions of dollars.  Furthermore, the human savings in pain and suffering would be enormous. There are cities in the world where infants and the elderly die from smog, mostly produced by vehicle emissions. 

Healthier Food - Just as less air pollution and fewer traffic fatalities will result in a healthier populace, so too will the abandonment of fossil fuel based fertilizers in favor of using organic methods. More locally produced fresher food will have more nutrients and fewer toxins. Shipping food long distances will no longer be required. Fewer manufactured and transported foods, will save processing and transportation fuel. 

Reduced Crime Rates - Due to the de facto monitoring of vehicles necessary for the Buddy Up program, a dramatic drop in crime rates would result. As discussed in detail earlier, Buddy Up limits escape routes after a crime has been committed, and citizen’s cell phones would allow immediate calls for emergency assistance. Additionally, fewer fender benders mean more police officers concentrating on crimes instead of traffic accidents. 

Gasoline Savings - As families use cars less they will see a reduction in their gasoline, auto repairs and auto purchases budget. The reduction in family transport spending can be reinvested to enhance local vacations. The current style of vacation, plane flight to a far away place, such as Hawaii or Disneyland, will be too resource intensive to continue.  However, Americans are capable and can easily build local amusement parks and recreation facilities.  A county fair can be as exciting as Disneyland for some of us, and a vacation week in the mountains, or at a lake, is fully satisfying for many. 

Other Savings - Further cost savings would be realized by people no longer requiring an entire car for themselves. Innovation can produce new designs in place of our many one-person vehicles, such as bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, powered skateboards, powered wheelchairs, golf carts, or hybrid creations like “It”, the small electric personal vehicle recently reported in the news media.

The facilities previously used to manufacture cars could produce such devices in mass very quickly. This sort of quick adaptation of America’s physical plant has been done before during wartime, and could be done again with the proper impetus.

Changes in Play and Recreation

There is no doubt that man is a playing animal.  Without recreation, productivity and satisfaction decrease.  How much of the current expense of oil is used to alleviate boredom, to satisfy our need to be with others? With reduced availability of fossil fuels, the way we play will be different, with more focus on the quality of the interaction than in distances traveled or options taken.  Loss of personal interaction due to car travel would be reversed. Community life would again increase in common public spaces. Restaurants would relocate to neighborhoods and distant malls would be a thing of the past. Hotels and motels would be less necessary, less expensive, and more amenable to lengthy stays.  Once a citizen had invested the time and money to travel to another town, he or she would be more likely to remain for a longer period of time.  Massive amusement parks would give way to local ones. Arthur Morgan emphasized the important role of recreation in community.

Changes in Social Interaction

These changes would throw Americans together in close physical proximity, providing the opportunities for community building. Social interaction will be affected as we try to maintain our American standards of privacy and personal distance despite the increased proximity resulting from the Buddy Up system. Like the Japanese, we will develop the ability to enable our own sense of privacy in crowded places without the need for physical distance. In particular, we would see an increased sense of reserve as personal interaction increased. This reserve, this formality, is already present in the world’s more physically crowded cultures, where people have a compartmentalized existence despite close physical proximity.

This will require Americans to adopt a “lower profile”, or less individualistic manners of dress or speech when interacting with other citizens.  Personal noise and scent pollution might become misdemeanors.  Outdoor radios without headphones would be banned, as would other offensive and noisy media in public spaces. Obnoxious or overly loud speech, especially into a cell phone, would be discouraged. This would result in a code of conversational ethics and silence-keeping that would stand us in good stead. Visual or aural assault by commercial advertising would be reduced or eliminated. 

There are corollaries to any kind of increased pubic co-existence, which is an increased tolerance for previously undesirable behavior.  In particular, young adults, perhaps still living at home, need a replacement for the privacy a car offers. Making such facilities available could well decrease the need to “tool around” burning fossil fuels looking for a place to “make out”. 

Changes in Work

What can we expect our jobs to be like with less access to private cars?  At first glance, it may appear to be less convenient, but perhaps the reduction in commute times will make up for this. Less traffic congestion and no rush hour might be well worth it for many people. 

Some people will lose jobs, particularly those who depend on driving. Further elimination of jobs will occur in the military, auto insurance and other auto related industries. The oil companies will be around for a long time, possibly reduced in size, packaging and selling energy, so there will be other opportunities with them. Making bikes and scooters for the American population could keep factories in work for years.

Since there will be fewer, more efficient vehicles  gas stations will begin to be used for charging batteries, etc. There will still be a need for auto repair, but much of this type of skilled labor will move to energy retrofitting and repair on buildings for optimum use of renewable resources and efficiency. Mechanics will also be needed for small engine repair and maintenance of mechanized people-transportation devices and bicycles. Oil companies will still be profitable but will be reduced in size. Companies which manufacture and install alternative means of heating and cooling will proliferate. New manufacturers of bikes, buggies and other simple transportation devices will come into being. The number of agricultural workers will increase due to the need to reduce our use of fossil fuels for fertilizer and machinery. The large retail chains dominating America today will break apart, resulting in smaller, locally based suppliers. Specialty items will still be available via US mail and the Internet.

Other types of business will flourish, especially those needed to provide a new American technological infrastructure. Communication companies, whose job it will be to manage transportation, will arise. Good communication will be vital.  We must gain the ability to project people and interaction and speech over distances without having to spend resources relocating the physical body.  We need reliable networking systems, video phones, phone bridges and integrated instantaneous document and photo transmission. 

There will be a need for many more construction workers to keep up with the massive amount of remodeling needed to meet new energy efficiency requirements. Medical care costs will be reduced because of fewer auto accidents and because people will become healthier due to a more active lifestyle and because food will be grown organically. Yet with medical care made available to everyone the number of people working in medical fields will not diminish. Finally, with the decrease in conflict caused by trying to control oil-producing countries, resources of time and money will be channeled into new jobs in energy, health and other research.

Conclusion:

The idea of Buddy Up America may seem farfetched to many people.  And yet, all the basic elements of such a prediction are already in play.  There is really no doubt that based on current usage, we will run out of oil, and no technology that currently exists offers a renewable energy solution. 

The European model of standardizing the work day for carpooling purposes is effective and will be implemented. To make the system work, there are even penalties charged to managers for making employees stay late, something that, at least for now, we find unthinkable in America. This, and other measures, will be implemented for greater satisfaction in the work force.

It is a fact that without access to oil, our country will change, hopefully for the better. Self-reliance and a cheerful willingness to face the future we have created will result in Buddy Up America, or something very like it.