Transportation Applications: How to get to and from work without a car and help reduce traffic

JessicaVolosin · ‎08-31-2018

I work for a local government agency and one of the ideas I am looking into is creating an app that would help reduce the traffic in my area and help people get to work. I live in a densely populated county with a few large interstates so the traffic is pretty heavy.

We have a few large warehouses (1,000,000 sq ft) and a lot of the people who work there don't have their own vehicles and there is no public transportation near them. It is too expensive for them to taxi/Uber to work everyday.

Has anyone created, or thinking about creating an app that helps deal with this problem? I have looked for case studies on this but have not found anything.

AlPollard · ‎08-31-2018

So, are you thinking about a van pool? Some sort of "privately" operated bus? there are a number of variables that go into creating an app like that. First you would plot where your employees are in relation to the work place, then run an analysis based on drive time (distance/path). You would then have to run different analysis on the different groupings of employees (North, South, East, West) of the location.

I'm not sure if that was exactly what you were asking though.

JessicaVolosin · ‎09-17-2018

One thing I am thinking about is something for businesses to request transportation. So if a company wants to help its employees find a way to work they would put in a request for transportation help and then there would be an analysis of what kind of critical mass to develop a transit district, as well as checking proximity to bus and train stops.

AlPollard · ‎10-17-2018

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, I don't visit the blog enough apparently. It appears my premise was correct. I'm not really experienced in building applications but it appears you would need to allow for several variables. The business would have to be able to upload a CSV file with employee addresses and the location of the work-site(s). Depending on the number of employees you could generate a cluster smart map to identify "pockets" of employees. Cluster density would determine what kind of transportation (how big) would be required. In order for it to appeal as a business you would have to run a cost analysis (maintenance, gas, licensing, etc.). Or you could generate a map showing the need and solicit your municipality demonstrating routes and ridership.