History of joint trips in Russia and abroad

The first precedents of traveling together have been known to man since time immemorial (hitchhiking) - hitchhiking, when two strangers make a joint trip. The driver, heading somewhere , sees a passenger - a person (hitchhiker), who gives a gesture (thumb raised up) and "picks" him. As a rule, such trips are free (but not always), and the safety of such movements cannot be guaranteed. However, they have spread around the world and are used even today. An example of such a trip can be seen in the 2000 American comedy "Road Trip" (road adventure).



In the  1940sOver the years, the fundamental direction of joint trips - carpooling. The appearance was due to the needs of the Second World War, and then in the  1970s in the USA (oil crisis). The sources from which people became aware of such trips were posters, they were of the nature of mass propaganda and served as motivation, coupled with  slogans-calls to save fuel for the good of the motherland, to contribute to the victory in the war , etc.
In connection with the arrival in our country life of information technology, the pace of life has naturally increased, the main criterion of which has become a limited resource - time. Simplicity, speed and usability of the service (application) became important to the user. As an independent direction, Carpooling mutated and divided into many subspecies:

 Vanpool

Vanpool - joint group trips from 7 to 15 people for a short or long distance within a particular social group (schoolchildren, students, colleagues , etc. ), which are usually permanent (scheduled). Often such trips are organized using the forwarding system available to professional drivers and vans (minibuses).
Colleagues themselves can also alternately act as drivers. Payment for transportation services is based on the principle of a subscription fee (this includes the cost for paying for gasoline divided between the participants, as well as the subscription fee for the tariff of the service, which provides special software and organizes trips in this way). The distance of such trips is fixed; software is responsible for the rational consolidation of trip members. For vanpool vans , special parking spaces marked with traffic signs are usually reserved at the departure and destination points.
Such trips in Russia have not yet found application, but in the USA they have been using them for a long time:
“For six consecutive months, I got to work for two, or even three hours, in terrible traffic jams, while paying huge amounts of money,” says Tatyana, who moved to the United States three years ago and lives near Los Angeles . - And then I came across the Vanpool Commuter Assistance Program. It turned out that in my area there were 8 more people who wanted to travel together. Now I pay  4-5 times less, and those who agree to drive do not pay at all. Real-Time  Ridesharing Real-Time






Ridesharing - joint travel services, a logical continuation of classic carpooling, two or more people move in the same car. The existence of this species is due to the satisfaction of needs caused by the high pace of human life in modern society. Distinctive features are:
• GPS navigation devices for determining driver routes and matching them with a passenger;
• Mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) to fulfill the requests of travelers, wherever they are;
• Social networks for establishing trust and responsibility between the driver and the passenger.
• These elements coordinate the work of the service in real time (including conducting a transaction for the trip and making adjustments when optimizing the route).
The motivation for using ridesharing services is based on the rational use of available passenger seats in private
cars (as a result - reducing the amount of fuel consumed, sharing transport costs between
travel companions, improving the state of road traffic). Trips can be carried out both short and long distances;
both once and permanently; both spontaneously and planned.
At the moment, as a type of joint trips, real-time ridesharing is able to satisfy almost everyone
transport needs of a rapidly developing modern society (security, price, traffic, ecology, live communication).


Slugging
Slugging - joint trips of a constant nature, occurring at the request of a passenger waiting at a specially designated, road sign (slug line)
incident of the first joint slugging trip occurred about 38 years ago (in 1975) in Washington DC ( almost immediately after when the HOV strips for carpool and  vanpool trips were designed and opened ). The main motivation of drivers during such trips is to fill their car (at least 3 people, taking into account the driver) for driving along a dedicated high-speed lane - HOV lane (High-occupancy vehicle lane). In such lanes it was possible to drive at a speed of 65+ mph instead of limiting the set 55 mph. Widely distributed in several US states (Washington DC, San Francisco, etc.)


Passengers who want to use this type of joint trips go to special websites , select the nearest slug line, arrive at the appointed place and wait for their driver in order live queue, the First Come - First Served principle applies (first come, first leave). There is no charge for such a trip, the shared costs are only funds spent on tolls (toll roads).
Such joint trips do not require interaction with special software and services that organize trips. At the same time, the authorities completely relieve themselves of any responsibility for what happened, shifting it to the fellow travelers themselves, their instincts and the will of chance. Compared to hitchhiking, slugging trips are more convenient; according to the security criterion, many questions remain.


Taxipooling
Taxipooling is a type of joint trip involving the use of a taxi by several (2 or 3) passengers at once. The benefits of such a trip are clear - passengers share the cost of the trip, and a  taxi service is guaranteed to have customers.
Passengers interact through the mobile application (the user selects the final and starting points of the trip, sets the trip time, including the interval (5, 10, 15, ... min.) Through which he waits for a taxi; the application selects the necessary route for the user, displays suitable car and offers the user a ride). On board a taxi is similar software. A preliminary arrangement is arranged in the form of instant text messages.


It is worth noting that in many countries the state actively supports joint movements: they allocate special parking spaces for people traveling in the same car, in some states of the USA you can drive on special roads faster, provided that there are at least two people in the car.
The Russian market in this area is only emerging, but there is already support for various structures, for example, the Fund for the Promotion of the Development of Small Forms of Enterprises in the  Scientific and Technical Field or the Krasnoyarsk Regional Innovation and Technology Business Incubator . With their help, our company "Puti" has developed a joint travel service of the same name, which belongs to the most reliable and modern form, namely real-timeridesharing. We have developed applications for searching for travel companions on various platforms: Android, iOS, Web, as well as for the social network Vkontakte. The applications are simple and convenient to use: you just need to enter your number and you will receive an activation code (free) on your phone. Then you indicate: you are the driver or passenger, determine the route, travel time and the application automatically selects a fellow traveler for you. The fame of such services in Russia, in comparison with the United States and Europe, has acquired not so large scale. but we try to disseminate information, and our users share their travel stories on various social networks. Here is an example of such a story sent by the user of our service Natalya:
“I would like to share with you my experience of one of my unexpected trips with a fellow traveler!
I drove from Tomsk to Yashkino through Kemerovo. And at the weight control, located not far from Kemerovo (about 60 kilometers), a traffic police representative slows me down. I, like any driver, “strain”. I didn’t seem to violate it, I’m not afraid of document checks, but still , something moved in my heart. I stop, open the window and, having no time to ask anything, I hear the question: “Are you in Kemerovo?” In five seconds of my silence, a thousand thoughts flashed through my head. From the category: the entrance to the city is mined there, sappers with dogs, you have to go the other way and so on all in the same vein! I answer in complete confusion: "in Yashkino." “Well, through Kemerovo?” He wonders. “Yes,” I reply, still struggling to figure out what, after allgoing on. And then the intrigue subsided to everyone's joy. - “Bring our employee to Kemerovo?” I was already confused, as it turns out it was simple! The only thing I was able to squeeze out of myself from surprise: “Is he good?”. “Good,” the traffic cop answered me and went to call his colleague. A man of about 60 years old got into my car and we moved towards Kemerovo, sweetly discussing tsarist Russia and Russia under the rule of the Bolsheviks. That's how the traffic police representatives organize joint trips. ” Have you ever had such trips?



And there are many such examples. Most people find out about us through various online resources.and, less commonly, from acquaintances. Over the past year, the audience of our applications has increased by several thousand and today is more than 11,000 people. Many people learn about the service through Vkontakte groups. Initially, the group was in the city of Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk. Over the past year, we were joined by the republics of Tyva, Kazakhstan and Tatarstan, as well as Omsk and the Arkhangelsk region. The total number of group members today has almost reached 10,000. Now one of our main tasks is to disseminate information about such a method of transportation as joint trips within the city and between cities.


The application can be downloaded from the following links: iOS - bit.ly/1l6b5cC , Android - bit.ly/1av6Izz , VKontakte - bit.ly/15VucNr .

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