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In reference to my post titled "How to End Traffic in Los Angeles," I received the following e-mail:
My name is Andrew Amey, I'm a graduate student at MIT doing research on the potential of real-time, or dynamic, ridesharing. We've called our project MIT's Real-Time Rides project. I saw your article in the June 2009 edition of the Atlantic titled "How to End Traffic in Los Angeles" and thought I would contact you. It may surprise you, but the idea of "dynamic carpooling" is alive and well and other notable authors have dreamt up similar ideas to your own...Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, published a very similar idea on his blog a while back (http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/how_i_solved_th.html).Over the past year, myself and a small group at MIT have gathered data on the range of firms offering new, technology driven services much like the one you described. This past April, we held a workshop at MIT to discuss various ideas and major hurdles to be overcome. We had over 40 participants from 5 countries join us for the event. I encourage you to take a look at our website (http://www.realtimerides.org/), we have a reasonably complete database of rideshare providers including some very innovative services, background on ridesharing/carpooling, a list of resources, and presentations and outcomes from the April workshop.
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