{"id":4510,"date":"2016-03-24T17:07:52","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T17:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gokid.mobi\/moving-people-not-cars\/"},"modified":"2023-10-27T12:46:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T12:46:06","slug":"moving-people-not-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gokid.mobi\/moving-people-not-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving People, Not Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This week we were tagged in a video by\u00a0Mobility Lab<\/strong>\u00a0about the future of mobility titled\u00a0Filling up seats in cars: The future of driving<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in which the main theme was \u201cmoving people instead of just cars.\u201d The theme of the video was related to my question in last week\u2019s blog: Can the slate of carpooling apps change the resistance of Americans to carpooling? I loved the video because in less than 5\u00a0minutes one understands the big changes that our society is undergoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technology can help fix market inefficiencies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyler Duvall of McKinsey & Company stresses the fact that every time they saw a technology taking off was when a technology was tapping into an inefficiency or information gap \u2013 and for some reason in transportation we didn\u2019t think that these existed. But with 85% of all cars on the road having only one person in them, the inefficiency of all those empty car seats is striking. And isn\u2019t it true that we, as parents, simply ignore a surplus of transportation capacity that could help eliminate 30% of the entire traffic on the road in the morning and afternoons? Yes, these are fellow parents driving exactly the same or a very similar route to the one we take every morning to school, from school, or to the many other after-school activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When thinking of this mismatch of readily available technology (GPS, mapping, social communication) and the problem in front of me (too much driving, too little time, too much traffic in our neighborhoods) the need for a solution was so apparent that I couldn\u2019t help but do something about it. Hence the idea of making carpooling for parents easier by creating a technology that will help solve the problem for millions of parents \u2013 GoKid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But maybe technology alone is not enough<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the video Emily Castor\u00a0of\u00a0Lyft<\/strong><\/a>\u2014the ridesharing company that now offers carpooling as their default option\u2014talks about the information that needs to be available to facilitate sharing excess seats in cars. Data sets like those originating from the popular mapping app\u00a0Waze<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0were something city planners were dreaming of only five years ago. So if the technology is there, why don\u2019t people operate differently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Steinberg\u00a0of\u00a0Carma<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0a technology for sharing commutes addresses a good point: The technology is there, from\u00a0BlaBlaCar<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to Carma\u00a0to nascent technologies like\u00a0GoKid<\/a>, but it takes longer to bring about a behavioral change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behavioral changes are on the horizon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, it no longer takes decades for new technologies to take off. We see changes in behaviors in unlikely places:<\/p>\n\n\n\n