This one seems quarter baked, instead of half. If too many cars is the cause of traffic problems, why not let a municipality provide several common vehicles that are shared throughout the day. Example, I need a ride to work. At 7:35 AM Sam stops by my house to pick me up. We travel to his office, and drop him off. I then must drive to Gina’s house to pick her up. We then go to my office. When I get out, Gina picks up the next passenger, and then goes to her place of employment. I know that this staggers some work schedules, but a nice tax incentive to employers may create some flexibility. Actually, when everybody was signed up for the loan-a-car program, a computer could maximize the efficiency by directing the driver to pick up multiple passengers heading in the same general direction. Just check your email every morning to find out who you will be picking up, and who will be picking you up. Also your employer will get an email copy of the schedule so she will know about when to expect you. If the pick up sequence was created by a computer, it may be able to send the data to one of the readily available GPS navigation systems. Just follow the voice to Rick’s house, and let him drive you on in to work. There has to be a small fleet of cars available individually to account for emergency returns to home or the hospital. Whatcha Think?-- chrissayre, Mar 20 2004 Car Sharing programs http://www.carsharing.net [krelnik, Oct 04 2004] Car Plus http://www.carclubs.org.uk/Car club network, UK [nalbion, Oct 04 2004] Car Share http://www.citycarshare.org/ [nalbion, Oct 04 2004] VrtuCar http://www.vrtucar.com/Ottawa [nalbion, Oct 04 2004] Urbigo http://www.urbigo.com/flash.htmUK [nalbion, Oct 04 2004] SmartMoves http://www.smartmoves.co.ukUK [nalbion, Oct 04 2004] Baked in slightly different form in over 3 dozen cities in North America. You reserve the car via a web site, use it for your trip, then leave it at your destination. Then a person in that neighborhood can pick it up and use it.
The programs are designed for city dwellers who only occasionally need a car. See link.-- krelnik, Mar 20 2004 Yeah, around my house its called I-Go but the problem is that they only have the Honda Civic, which is not a very comfortable car to transport passengers in the back..-- thedoubler2, Mar 30 2004 The Civic works fine for transporting people in the back. Flexcar (the system we have in Seattle) has minivans, trucks, convertables, and SUVs to support special requirements.-- Worldgineer, Apr 11 2004 random, halfbakery