And what the Mayor’s office in conjunction with the TLC and by default, the MTA has proposed, within that same vein of trying new and innovative solutions for current issues, is to propose a van sharing program that would attempt to give riders a means to still get to their desired destination without having to drastically change their transportation pattern. Given that the MTA was forced to reduce and cut a number of bus lines, most in the outer boroughs to balance their budget, this crisis has left many New Yorkers in a very unfortunate predicament. Some former riders, many of whom relied on certain bus lines to get them directly to their places of work, or simply to a connecting form of transportation, which would then carry them to their final destination, were left without a means to perform this task when the MTA eliminated certain bus lines.  But with the introduction of the van program, the Mayors office has once again gone out on a limb and is trying it’s best to keep New York moving forward. Although the van program may not be equal to the bus lines in terms of capacity and utility, it is a solution that could resolve the issue of under-transportation for most of the riders who have been affected. It is also a program that may prove to be successful in not only helping to alleviate the current issue, but it might shed light on how the rest of the city could approach similar under served transportation populations by using shared vans as a permanent solution in certain areas. This pilot program aims to do more than address the immediate issue, it can serve as a pathway to further reaching para-transit objectives, while simultaneously beginning to answer the question of how New Yorkers might get around more efficiently in a city that is sure to increase in population as we move into the future. Even more so in future than now , the need for transportation solutions that encourage dedicated group riding networks that are capable of serving large numbers of people but doing it in a way that still serves the needs of individual without forgetting about the practical requirements of serving a large population, will need to be addressed.

Hurdles most certainly remain with regards to this van sharing program. And clearly, as observed in a number of articles that have already been written on the topic, both the TLC and the Mayor’s office are still fuzzy on the details, or another way to put it, they have not worked through the practical logistics of how this plan will be implemented on the ground. It is worth noting that this plan seeks to bring into the fold, once unregulated and disenfranchised operators who have for years been running their own unlawful van programs that when measured according to demand, have been wildly successful in serving many of the same people that this van sharing program is targeting. The people of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx have for years been serviced by these “dollar vans” but the downside has often been that these vans are less safe due to a lack of oversight and are not sanctioned by the city and are thus subject to punitive reprisals by the powers that be. So in a very interesting way, because the Mayor’s office and the TLC may come to depend on some of these underground operators to actually make their pilot work, there is a real opportunity for both sides to strike a deal that may lead to a healthy and productive new industry that is born out of a mutually beneficial relationship that brings both bodies closer together, instead of keeping each other at arms length, which has been the status quo for as long as anyone can remember. As i see it, the hard part is constructing a new idea that can stand up to scrutiny. The easy part is finding a way to make it work. In my opinion, the hard part is done, now comes the easy part! Here is to a successful van sharing pilot.

In light of cogestion problems and obvious unmet capacity, Matthew Daus, the former TLC commisioner, understood the need for the taxi cab industry to try something new and bold. His proposal was met with both enthusiasm and trepidation, as most novel concepts often are. His ride sharing stands, all of which which are located in or near mid town Manhattan, are designed to reduce the strain on both the streets and the commuters, particularly during rush hours. And although the program is off to a slow start having launched this past March, the concept has seen the light of day and is being tested in real time situations. It can only benefit from this process and will undounbtedly be reviewed for “what about it worked” and what about it did not work — and will be revamped accordingly.

But Daus is not alone in attempting to innovate the cab industry by way of introducing ride sharing policies. David Yassky, the new commissioner, has continued these efforts by announcing a ride sharing program from La Guardia airport, which is notorious for providing sub par transportation options to and from its location. Yassky hopes to make it more affordable, environmentally friendly and reasonable for travelers to get to their city wide destinations.

And even more recently, as of this week, Mayor Bloomberg’s office in conjunction with Yassky’s office has proposed van ride sharing to help those in areas where the MTA has been forced, due to budget constraints, to eliminate bus routes. These routes are critical for many outer borough residents and the city is scrambling to create viable solutions, one of which is to erect ride sharing programs that involve the coordination of riders, drivers and routes to meet the complicated demand of transporting large numbers of people on a daily basis around NYC.

These solutions as i see them, all speak to one larger issue and that is tackling the issues surrounding how a city as large and complicated as NYC, will meet the challenges of tomorrow’s urban transportation needs. Finding ways to share resources by more efficiently leveraging the current infrastructure will certainly be at the center of any major transportation proposal that is to be presented in both the near and distant future.

“People want to share cabs, they just don’t have an idea as to where the act of meeting would take place, or they can’t get to one that is convenient for them.”

He was speaking, of course, about NYC’s widely derided implementation of its own cab sharing program.  And while Shareable.net offered some great ideas for how the city could better promote its efforts to introduce this concept, the reality is that sharing a cab needs to be as simple as hailing a cab.  Otherwise, commuters will just take the bus… or they’ll spend the extra duckets.

To wit: the introduction of a whole bevy of new players in this space–all of them mobile applications–attests to the fact that our on-demand culture requires on-demand gadgets to make cab-sharing the on-demand experience it needs to be.

BONUS:
Read Shareable’s take on cab-sharing etiquette.  This topic is always kinda fun.

After a year of prototype operation and six months of development, CabCorner’s powerful new platform has launched!!!

We commend the entire team for their hard work and dedication, and look forward to serving our users.  Check out the site, and let us know what you think.

Her: I mean, do we want our phones to be that involved in helping us out? Personal assistants are nice and all, but don’t we want to feel like we still have free will? That we will check out the apps WE choose to help organize our lives? Not the other way around. In his hypothetical example, his phone knew that he had been eating too much Italian food, so it suggested a falafel joint. Well, maybe the phone should have figured that he really liked Italian, so it should have provided him another Italian restaurant. I don’t need my phone judging my taste in carryout.

But that being said, there’s always that weird line between the convenience of a new technology and the Orwellian surveillance it could create. Like, it’s so easy to use EZPass, but now we’re willfully giving information over to the state about where our cars have been. In every battle we’ve had like this, technology has always won because it makes our lives easier. Maybe apps for the phone will be just one of those privacy issues we won’t care about because it improves our lives so much. I just wonder where the line will be drawn…whenever it does get drawn.

Don’t get me wrong — I’d love to see developers look at ways to synthesize the data we willfully give our phones in a smart way. But isn’t there something here that makes you say “Hey, what if I don’t want my phone telling me what to do?”

And my response, albeit to play the contrarian, was to continue the debate:

Me: I have to say, at the end of the day it is up to the user, the arguably still more intelligent one of the two, to use his tool to his advantage when it seems to suit him and to table it when it does not. I have no issue with hitting the power button and/or ignoring “noise” from my devices if i am aware of its obtuse infringement on my ability to make judgements about my own life. I see this as just another convenience which some will welcome, others will not and others still might be blind sided by, and for that last group, i do pity them slightly. But it is their own damn fault for not keeping things in perspective, not the fault of the device, technology, society or any other external force one might try to apply to the situation to argue the negatives of such a tech mobile revolution. BTW, you can always leave your EZ pass at home and get in the cash only lane on the highway. Your choice, your time, your world…paint it how you like it!

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The truth is, as with most predictions about the future, particularly when it comes to predictions about future technologies that are based on today’s known quantities, we often miss the mark in terms of how this new technology will actually evolve but we are dead right about the fact that it will evolve. Predictive technology, artificial intelligence, adaptive learning, call it what you like, is a natural outgrowth of our quest to improve upon those systems, once we have created a strong foundation, and to a degree  have mastered the basic application of that particular system.  Cellular technology and wireless communication is something we have done very well. We are certainly at a point where the systems should be moving into the realm of adopting sophisticated ways of parsing, aggregating and collating the data we are constantly feeding these mobile devices to come up with conclusions we did not in fact initiate with a direct command.  What conclusions we direct our smart devices to contemplate have yet to be determined, but with the advent of smart phones being ubiquotous and companies investing massive amounts of resources into location based marketing, activities, applications, it is a reasonable conclusion to draw that these devices will soon seek to intuit where we are going, what we intend to do when we get there, and in the “scariest” scenario, know what we really want to do, when in truth, we may not have even thought about it until our device alerts us to the possibility.

Imagine a scenario where Mr. Jackson, a very busy person, who has a million obligations a day, naturally uses his smart phone as a day planner among other things such as a web mobile device, contact book and of course, a phone. And let’s assume today is a particularly exhaustive day that will begin with an early morning board meeting and should, if everything goes as planned, end with him arriving in London by 8 am (London time) for a meeting with the CEO of the company.

In the morning, his phone alerts him to his 8 am board meeting, which he is on time for and prepared for. His phone had allowed him to download and send spreadsheets to the office ahead of his arrival so his assistant could print out the packets and have them waiting for him when he arrived. He also used his phone to make a few calls on his commute into the city, including one to his friend who he has lunch plans with (time is set but location is still TBD), as well as a call to Best Buy, which is around the corner from his office, regarding an electric razor he would like to return and wanted to know if he would need a reciept to return it. After his meeting concludes, he recieves an email reply sent to his phone from his friend stating that he will be near 42nd and 7th ave at the agreed time for lunch, and all he needs to know is where they will be eating. Mr. Jackson also recieves a reply from Best Buy stating that he would not need a reciept if he had proof of purchase, such as a credit card statement or the warranty receipt he recieved at the point of purchase when he signed up for it using his email address the other day.

Fast forward to 15 minutes before he is supposed to meet his friend for lunch, and he has yet to figure out a place to eat (he has been too busy with office related issues to look up and or call any place to make reservations), so he engages his phone to go on adaptive mode and try to square away the rest of the day for him. With in minutes the phone has identified a place both he and his friend might like to eat at, in the area and time they need it, and it automatically sends a text to his friend letting him know that Mr. Jackson will be at said restaurant at said time, reservations are under Mr. Jackson for 2. As Mr. Jackson is hurrying to the restaurant, his phone was able to find for him and alert him to by way of name and placement on his mobile friendly map, calculating that he would be able to get there in time for the reservation, he is alerted by his phone that it has retireved the warranty email for the Best Buy gift as well as the credit card statement and all he has to do is present this info to the clerk at Best Buy to get his refund. Additionally, he should plan to be at the Best Buy by 1:30 in order to keep the rest of his daily schedule intact. So that means lunch would have to conclude before or by 1:15pm, and a reminder alarm has been set.

Fast forward to right after leaving Best Buy, with refund in hand, phone alerts Mr. Jackson to the fact that his flight will be leaving at 8 pm tonight from JFK and he needs to be on his way by 5:30 to make it in time for the flight. The phone also alerts him that there is traffic on the Van Wyck so he should instruct the taxi cabdriver to try a different route, if he wants to be on time. The phone then also offers a possible ride comapnion to split the taxi cost out to JFK. A CabCorner user has plugged in a ride that is leaving from near Mr. Jackson’s office at a certain time that fits the ride requirements and that companion will be at the Starbucks on the corner at 4:45. The phone asks Mr. Jackson if he would like to go ahead and have that ride arranged for him as well as take advantage of the CabCorner sponsered 2 for 1 coffee deal that would have a cup of joe paid for and waiting for him at the Starbucks at 4:45, the time he is expected to meet his companion. Mr. Jackson clicks yes to both, puts the phone back in his pocket and is back in the office by 2pm with 2.5 hrs to complete his final report before heading out to the airport for his 8pm flight.

Needless to say, a hectic day was easily managed with help from a logistical whiz, his smart phone, and given all the data it was able to pull together and organize, it was able to anticipate where Mr. Jackson might need assistance in executing his plans for the day. Of course, it was up to Mr. Jackson to initiate the aid from his phone but once he did, he was probably pleased he did, because by 9pm, he was eating fillet mignon, sipping a Carlsberg, comfortably situated in his Business Class seat (which he was able to snag, moving up from Coach to Business Class because his phone had alerted him to the upgrade option on his way to the airport due to a passenger cancellation) and here he was, on his way to meet the boss in London. A full day, managed to the fullest!

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This evening, Varun alerted us to a story he uncovered in amNewYork…

Rather unfortunately, the title falsely asserted that newcomer Fare/Share was the “first mobile app to help riders split taxi trips.”   Yet CabCorner’s iPhone companion application was in fact the first out of the gates.  However, when I issued that complaint to Jonathan, he calmly responded that we in fact needed the pressure of an aggressive new market entrant, and terming it “first” would give us a bit of cover.  After all, he said, our platform has been well-received precisely because of the work we’ve done in ironing out the flaws that plague our competitors’ platforms.

I suppose he’s right.  The challengers of today make the partners of tomorrow, and these fellow cab-share logisticians will help further disseminate the cab-sharing concept to the public.  Moreover, it’s truly refreshing that they built an app for the BlackBerry, as opposed to the iPhone.  (As a BB user myself, I’m getting tired of Apple’s ubiquity.)

Curiously, the Fare/Share team appears interested in tackling the NYC market exclusively.  I suppose this is because their idea comprises a particular subset of CabCorner’s overall strategy: to make a platform powerful enough to cater to the various taxi environments throughout the country, by relying on yellow-cab density in NYC and livery-cab partners in Los Angeles, for example.

BONUS:
You have GOT to check out this video featuring some entrepreneurial tykes showing off their own concept for sharing taxi fares.  I’m not sure how these little peeps are related to the Fare/Share enterprise, but suffice it to say that if school’s today are cranking out this degree of innovation and media savvy, I might as well just wait around to be hired by one of these pre-adolescents!

• Fare/Share on the WSJ “App Watch” blog
• Fare/Share in Amvona

RELEASE: CabCorner acquires CabEasy; Partners with SenseNetworks

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Friends!

I am so pleased to report that the acquisition of CabCorner’s former competitor CabEasy.com has been completed.  This is a truly exciting time for our company as we prepare for our Memorial Day launch on May 31st.  Our operation now stands as the leader in cab-sharing technology, and we are poised to lead this industry into the future.

To learn more about the merger, check out our Press Release above, where we also discuss the exciting new deal we’ve struck with Sense Networks, makers of the popular CabSense mobile application.

Our partnership with CabEasy has been truly exciting, and brings to our team the expertise of CabEasy’s founder and “serial entrepreneur” Laurent Kretz.  If that name sounds familiar, it’s likely because you read about him in the New York Post, which recently reported on SubMate, a new venture Laurent is pursuing to pair up straphangers on the subway.  We look forward to working with Laurent to expand our operation overseas, especially to his native France.

Congratulations to all who made this deal possible!

• Check out the deal’s coverage in CenterNetworks
  

If we are to look at the United States over the last century,  a significant shift out of cities and into rural dwellings began in earnest after the Great Depression. And that should come as no surprise to many. Economic turmoil and upheaval forced a great number of people to seek shelter and a livelihood outside of  the cities, where jobs had become scarce and opportunity was virtually non existent. The advent of WWII marked the true beginning of what was to become a lasting and defining image of American life over the second half of the last century– this image, this idea  became known as suburbia. With the economic winds shifting in favor of America, Americans became interested in moving out of the cities, which on the whole had become some what neglected and were seen, with each passing day,  more as places of commerce than places of dwelling. The natural progression was to move out in to open space where the air was cleaner, the skies were broader and each American was free to pursue their perfect piece of happiness. The implementation of the US Highway Act in 1956,  played no small role in this evolution, but it was strongly aided by a sense that America was ready to use its wealth and resources to spread itself out and begin to live a much more standardized and compartmentalized way of life.

And this model has imposed itself, very effectively on the fabric of American society for the past 60 years. Yet it has seemingly met its first real challenge, ironically, on account of another economic upheaval (maybe not as audacious as the great depression) but the ” great recession” has affected and challenged us to view many things we had come to know as iconically American. Instead of economic turmoil forcing people to seek refuge and opportunity outside of the cities, it has had the exact opposite effect. The financial cost of having to traverse miles of road to simply make it to a job or feeling isolated from networks which might be able to help one find a job or simply having bought something, such as a home, that was beyond one’s financial means instead of renting has begun to bare its teeth with blatant disregard for the ways things used to be or as some might lament, should have been. Beyond the financial impact there is the social, and beyond that there is the psycholigical impact of this streched system suburbia has created; from how and where kids are educated to how women and men approach their respective roles in this once thought of utopian world, to the practical realities of trying to live as semi-social beings when we are by nature, hyper-social beings. The urban environment seems to provide a lot of the answers for Americans seeking to shift and adjust their lives according to this new order as catalyzed by this most recent economic upheaval.

The baby boomers, a direct product of the post WWII American experience, many of whom were growing up during this shift from urban to rural relocation, are also a contributing factor in socieity’s return to the city as a whole. Their want to experience the uniqueness and fresh perspective cities provide when compared to their counterpart, suburbia, undoubtedly has influenced the boomers want to seek out apartments ,and smaller, more shared living environments, which includes the idea that one can walk to the supermarket instead of being forced to drive as is the case in suburbia . And with this return to the city comes an opportunity to serve this population in a way that fits their needs, in the way they want to be served, in accordance with the underlying reasons for why society has once again begun to favor the urban over the suburban. There is a very interesting article put out by the Harvard Business Review that seeks to highlight some of the economic and social implications of this movement. And of course, the boomers are only a small group within the vast groupings that make up American society, and many of these other groups have similar reasons for looking towards the cities as the land of opportunity, but they are not as tightly wound together in terms of social experiences, station in life and age and thus i singled out the boomers as a prime example because they are the easiest bunch to accurately generalize about.

The short of it is, Americans are turning to cities because they offer a level of sophistication and socially conscious ways of existing that people seem to once again be seeking in this period of economic contraction. And cab-sharing seems to embody in a nutshell, the experience that many Americans are returning to the cities to be exposed to and to take advantage of. We are here to do our part and we hope that you all are ready to embrace the Urban Renaissance in all its glory.