Car-Sharing, GPS Data Changing Transportation Patterns

As reported by the Daily Bulletin: Why drive a car when you can tap out a ride on your smartphone and get picked up in minutes. Need to drive? Rent a car by the hour and then leave it on the street when you’re done with it.

But if you must own a car, one California automaker is betting it won’t use gasoline. The company’s sole mission is making the internal combustion engine go the way of the horse and buggy and is currently working on an affordable, battery-powered model that travels 245 miles on a single charge.

These innovative transportation models — being played out today in the California marketplace by new, successful companies — are part of what one UCLA urban transportation expert calls “a brave new world” that puts traditional transportation thinking on its ear.

“Technology is affecting transportation, and we need to be thinking about that. The change can be tectonic,” said Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA, during a gathering of 400 city mayors, staffers and experts in Indian Wells on Thursday and Friday as part of the Southern California Association of Governments regional conference on mobility, technology and economic opportunity.

Taylor compared the changes to the placement of wooden wheels on trolley carts in the 19th century — the beginning of mass transit that resulted in suburban enclaves around city centers.

“It is an exciting time. It’s like an impressionist painting, you can’t see it up close but only when you step back,” he said.

Emerging companies include: Lyft, a ride-matching company that has grown from outlets in 36 cities to 60 cities; Car2go, a rental service accessible via smartphone app that allows one-way car rentals for as little as a minute or an hour; Tesla, the all-electric car company started by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk working on a cheaper model; Google, which is testing its driverless car for a possible 2017 release; and Fehr & Peers, a big data gathering firm that uses cellphone data and Twitter posts to calculate a younger generation’s travel patterns.

“We all know something this is changing. What is exciting about this is that this has all come up on its own and we don’t know where it is headed,” Taylor said after a session on technology and transportation.

The Obama administration supports the advances in technology through its Grow America Act, a multi-billion-dollar proposal that sets aside a minuscule amount, about $108 million a year up to $113 million a year for four years for technological advances in transportation.

Assistant Secretary of the Department of Transportation Greg Winfree said the DOT can’t support private companies but is making the money available to universities to study people and goods movement.

Taylor just finished a study examining teenagers and transportation. Taylor said teenagers don’t plan out trips in advance like baby boomers but instead make decisions in real time.

“We are changing the way we behave. But this is how they’ve started out. These kids have never known a world without mobile technology. That terrifies transportation planners,” Taylor said with a smile.

For example, cellular data in downtown Sacramento showed where drivers went to dinner before the basketball game and where they drove to after the game, said Ron Milam with Fehr & Peers. And Twitter posts in Seattle helped a bus agency better adjust routes and service.

“One tweet we got was kind of scary. It was from a man on the bus who overheard a conversation between a rider getting on the bus and the driver: ‘Man on my bus: ‘I’m broke. I just got out of jail. Can I get a ride.’ Bus driver: ‘Sure.’ Me: So scared.” Milam said the bus company was made aware of the tweet as part of the survey information it commissioned from his firm.

Big data can be used to help cities and transit agencies better plan new bus and rail service as well as new stadiums. The data is cheap and available, he said.

Milham was asked if personalized data from a car’s dashboard computer or a cellphone reveals a person’s identity.

“It is all anonymized,” he said. “We don’t know who the data is associated with. It is aggregated in quite a large geographic area so we don’t know where a person lives.”

The cities of Pasadena and San Diego are cooperating with a freeway and roadway data program sponsored by the Department of Transportation, Winfree said. One project, the Integrated Corridor Management System, will give drivers on the 210 Freeway access to weather and real-time traffic patterns on their smartphones. The project has not yet been completed.

Lyft, a 2-year-old company that serves area including Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, matches passengers needing a ride to drivers with extra seats using a smartphone app. Drivers are given background checks and must pass scrutiny to join the program, said Emily Castor, Lyft director of community relations who spoke at the conference.

Mostly the drivers are using their four- or five-seater car as a money-making tool by giving rides. But Castor said the company is beginning to see drivers give rides as part of their daily routine.

Dan Sturges, a transportation designer for the private firm Team Red US, said the bundling of car-sharing and matching services could be enough for a couple or family to sell their second car. The result would be an economic saving of $4,000 a year, plus less emissions released into the air.

Castor estimated that 80 percent of seats on the road go empty every day.

“Wouldn't it be amazing to use technology to fill those seats?” she asked the audience.

Delegates from smaller cities in Los Angeles County said car-sharing and car-pool matching services work better in more dense, urban areas. “It seems like more populated cities, more urbanized cities are doing it ... rather than outlying cities,” said Diamond Bar Mayor Carol Herrera, a SCAG member.

Castor disagreed, saying Lyft has been successful in sprawling exurbs in Orange County and the Inland Empire.

“Put car-sharing in the neighborhood and near work centers and with public transit, you create a bundle. So you don’t need a second car,” Sturges said.

Planners like Sturges and Milam are looking at traffic gridlock in new ways. Many say building new freeways is no longer a possibility. And that building subways under Los Angeles is expensive.

But social engineering — using smartphone and big data — can be an effective traffic-fighting tool and one that is becoming more acceptable.

“We are not going to solve these problems by working the way we have the last 20 years. We will solve these problems by working in a new way and by being inventive,” Sturges said, to a round of applause.