Seattle Smart Traveler: Dynamic Ridematching on the World Wide Web

Seattle Smart Traveler (SST) is an application of World Wide Web (WWW) technology to test the concept of automated dynamic rideshare matching. In SST, the rideshare clientele interact with the rideshare system using only WWW pages. SST collects spatial and temporal trip information using a series of WWW pages, performs a match using structured query language (SQL) specifications to a database engine, and supports both the standard phone-based contact methodology as well as two new, unique email-based contact methodologies. SST was operated in parallel to a traditional, regional rideshare system for one year, and the two systems were marketed to the user community on a side-by-side basis. SST and the traditional system acquired approximately the same number of new users over a nine-month test period; however, there was little overlap in the population using the two parallel systems. SST demonstrates that there is a user population that can be reached using Internet technologies for immediate/dynamic ridematching that is not reached by traditional ridematch programs. This paper also reports a new statistical model for quantifying rideshare matching and carpooling. The model is validated using the SST experimental results, and the model demonstrates that the carpooling process is a quadratic function of the number of users participating.