Jitneys becoming more popular in Miama

Minibus jitneys becoming popular option
Posted on Sun, May. 18, 2008

BY ADAM H. BEASLEY
abeasley@MiamiHerald.com

With gas prices topping $4 in parts of Miami, some are ditching their cars and jumping on the jitney.

The minibus transportation system, which first popped up in South Florida in the 1920s, has long been a cheap and dependable way to get around the city.

The jitney, the common name for a shared taxi, is appealing to some for several reasons. Unlike the bus, which has a fixed schedule, jitneys zoom by seemingly every five minutes. They have routes throughout the county, will make stops anytime you ask, and only cost $1 -- a third cheaper than Metrobus.

And thanks to their size -- slightly bigger than a van but smaller and quicker than the bus -- jitneys can slip in and out of traffic, slicing the commute.

''I don't like taking it, but it's faster,'' said Marie Rodriguez, who uses the jitney to get downtown from Little Haiti at least three times a week. ``I have a bus pass, but there's just so many stops. I'd rather take this.''

The jitney does have its drawbacks, Rodriguez said. They're often cramped, sometimes stiflingly hot, and on some days, boisterous discussions -- often in Creole -- break out.

As much as anything, a jitney is a rolling reflection of the community it serves.

''Like anything in Miami-Dade, it can be a cultural experience,'' said Sonya Perez, spokeswoman for the county's Department of Consumer Services.

There is also a question about the service's long-term viability.

The companies are experiencing the same economic hurdles as most everyone else. For as many new riders jitney owner Daniel Fils-Aime has gained, he believes he's lost at least as many regular passengers who have been laid off.

''The economy has affected everybody,'' said Fils-Aime, who runs Miami Mini Bus, which runs through Little Haiti. ``The gas prices are sky high. A lot of people are not working. It doesn't balance out at all.''

According to the county regulators, the jitney system is viewed as a ''dying'' business, Perez said. With Metrobuses and trains reaching places now they haven't in the past, fewer take the jitney now than before, she added. Jitneys are not allowed in Broward County, according to its transit department.

However, Fils-Aime's fleet of white and blue mini-buses, which hold up to 15 passengers, were packed Tuesday morning.

Miami Metro Bus is one of 13 carriers certified to run jitney service in the county. Routes stretch deep into South Miami-Dade (covered by Metro Jitney) and west through Hialeah (Conchita Transportation). They also run through Overtown, North Miami and Liberty City.

Although they are in competition with the county's public transportation system -- Miami Mini Bus passes several bus stops en route to downtown -- Miami-Dade has an agreement with some of the jitney companies. Metro Jitney and Conchita Transportation both issue and accept Metrorail transfer passes.

The term ''jitney'' came into the vernacular in the early part of the 20th century. The word was commonly used as the name for a five-cent piece -- the cost to catch a ride on the vehicle that was bigger than a taxi but smaller than a full-sized bus, said Miami historian Paul George.

Miami has long had a deep Caribbean influence, and the jitney service is a reflection of it. Shared taxis are the method of transportation in places like Haiti (called Tap-Taps, because you tap on metal to indicate you want off) and some Latin American countries (where they're named públicos).

They caught on in Miami first during the real estate boom of the 1920s, faded then reemerged post-World War II, and then returned again in the 1980s. Since then, they've been a major source of transportation for service workers from outlying areas into downtown Miami.

The system has been regulated by the county since the 1980s. Jitneys are only allowed on certain streets, the vehicles are regularly inspected and drivers must obtain a chauffeur registration and pass background checks to get behind the wheel.

For now, Fils-Aime doesn't plan to raise the fare. Doing so would risk losing customers to the bus.

Plus, it would change the essence of what jitneys have always been -- cheap and accessible by the working class -- and the reason they have the name they do.

''I'm not thinking about making changes yet,'' he said. ``If I did, who's going to service the public?''

The Case for Jitneys

This is the html version of the file http://www.communitysolution.org/pdfs/NS12.pdf.

NewSolutions
Community, a solution for saving the environment and conserving resources with equity for all.
Number 12, April 2007
TheSmartJitney:Rapid,
RealisticTransport
Plan C, Community Solutions’ response to Peak Oil and climate change, recommends energy
conservation alternatives in three categories: buildings, agriculture and transportation. Of the
three, transportation is the easiest category to address, but the solution involves changing our
value systems and the way we view the world, rather than relying on high risk technology.
For many decades, the problems of transportation have revolved around the issue of private
versus public. AfterWorldWar II the country made transportation via the private car the top
priority at the expense of public transportation.This choice is not sustainable.The private
car, regardless of its convenience, can no longer serve as the principle mode of people
transport. Its high cost, the depleting of fossil fuels, and climate deterioration – along
with high rates of deaths and injuries – make it unacceptable. Our choice today
is to determine what kind of strategy should be adopted to move the basis of
transportation away from the private automobile.
Since Peak Oil could arrive sooner than expected and the depletion rate
could be faster than predicted, prudence requires a backup plan other than
merely changing car technology. A “Smart Jitney” system could be developed
rapidly, and provide for a very sizable (50-75%) reduction of gasoline con-
sumed and greenhouse gases generated by transportation. It could also be the
model for a new and more efficient approach to personal mobility. Ultimately, it
could be vital in keeping our economy going by giving people a way to get to and
from work if there suddenly was not have enough fuel for private cars.
U.S.TransportationToday
–DefiningaWayofLife
The U.S. transportation system is extremely
complex.The car dominates our economy
and our way of life. Before we can change
to a more sustainable system, it is important
to understand the effects of the automobile
as well as the major trends – a growing car
population, increasing use of fossil
fuels, decreasing vehicle occupancy, as well
as great numbers of deaths and massive
property damage.
In 2006 there were 210 million personal
vehicles in the U.S. including SUVs, cars,
pickups, and other “car equivalent units” or
CEUs, not including motorcycles or motor
scooters.This represents about 30% of the
approximately 750 million cars in use in the
world today.
Worldwide, there are 75 million new
CEUs built each year, 20 million as replace-
ments and 55 million as new additions
to the world passenger vehicle fleet.The
world’s growth in automobile fuel con-
sumption for CEUs is about 8% annually.
Figure 1: U.S. Transportation Fleet
Fleet
Number
Median Life
Cost to replace half the
(years)
fleet (in 2003 $)
Automobiles
130million
17
$1.3trillion
LighttrucksSUVs,etc.
80million
16
$1trillion
HeavyTrucks,Buses
7million
28
$1.5trillion
Aircraft
8,500
22
$0.25trillion
America’s cars and CEUs generate
45% of the world’s total generation of
auto-mobile CO
2
.
On average, every American buys 13 cars
in his/her lifetime.
1
Figure 1 shows the total
U.S. transportation fleet except for trains.
2
The long life of these vehicles illustrates
the difficulty of replacing them with more
efficient ones, assuming highly efficient
vehicles are available.
Heavy trucks are extremely important
when considering the transportation of
food and other materials. In addition, the
8,500 aircraft flying at 30,000 feet do more
climate damage than their numbers suggest
Page 2
PAGE 2 : NEW SOLUTIONS
APRIL 2007, NUMBER 12
VehicleOccupancy
U.S. drivers tend to be solitary (see
Figure 3).Typically, American drivers
average about 1.5 persons per car for a trip.
Vans have only slightly more than two pas-
sengers.
5
Averaging all the different kinds
of vehicles gives an occupancy of about 1.3
persons per vehicle; a great quantity of fuel
distances traveled far outweigh the mileage
improvement from any new kind of engines.
And, even supposing there were sufficient
oil to fuel this growth, the amount of CO
2
it would generate would increase, rather
than reduce, global warming. Rapidly
increasing use while performance improves
only slowly is neither sustainable nor
survivable.
because the emissions from burning fuel are
deposited at higher altitudes.
PerformanceImprovementsand
GrowthTrends
Automobile engine technology improves
at approximately 1.5% annually.
3
However,
even this improvement does not necessarily
result in better mileage because at the same
time that fuel efficiency improves, the size
of both vehicles and engines increases,
cancelling out the potential miles-per-
gallon improvement.
For instance, if the current car fleet were
still at 1981 engine size and vehicle weight,
the passenger car would now get 38 mpg
instead of the current 28 mpg.The reason
it hasn’t is because technology improvements
have gone into other attributes demanded
by the marketplace, such as speed, accelera-
tion and size rather than fuel economy.
...if the current car fleet were still at
1981 engine size and vehicle weight, the
passenger car would now get 38 mpg
instead of the current 28 mpg.
Another reason our petroleum consump-
tion (and with it our CO
2
emissions) are
steadily increasing is that the number of cars
and trucks is rapidly growing, not just in the
U.S. but on a worldwide basis (see Figure 2).
4
This chart, which projects growth based on
current trends, shows the numbers extend-
ing to completely unsustainable levels. And
it does not take into consideration Peak Oil.
When oil production peaks, there will be
a steady yearly decrease in the availability of
diesel fuel and gasoline.Those who argue
that basic changes to the transportation
system are not needed because of improved
car efficiency are not addressing the implica-
tions of going from 750 million cars that
get 35 miles per gallon with an average
yearly mileage of 10,000 miles to something
like 1.3 billion cars (in just 23 years) that
might get 50-70 miles per gallon and drive
an average yearly mileage of 15,000 miles.
The increase in the number of cars and the
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Car
Van
SUV
Pickup
Other
Truck
All
Number of Passengers per Trip for Different Vehicles
Figure 3: Number of Passengers per Trip for Different Vehicle Types
Figure 2: Increase in Global Fleet Size and Petroleum Use
Source: World business council for Sustainable Development, International Energy Agency, Sustainability Mobility Project
These projections assume present trends continue, no new policies are implemented, consumer
behaviors do not change significantly, and alternative fuels and radical technological innovations
do not significantly penetrate the market. Limits in oil availability are also not considered.
Page 3
NUMBER 12, APRIL 2007
NEW SOLUTIONS : PAGE 3
is wasted when driving vehicles that could
contain more passengers.
Unfortunately, this tendency to drive
alone is increasing, as shown in Figure 4.,
6
and is coupled with the increase in auto-
mobile size and weight and longer driving
distances. Our own society and the societ-
ies of other countries are risking climate
degradation by rapidly expanding our more
car-intensive way of living.
CarDeathsandInjuries
The current car paradigm encourages
people to take as many car trips as possible.
Such heavy use of cars requires building and
maintaining an enormous number of roads,
garages and parking areas. Advertising
that supports the cultural ideal of rugged
individualism encourages driving the largest
possible cars while we allow our buses and
trains to be unpleasant. Walking and cycling
are inconvenient and dangerous, and the
priority is always “don’t delay the car.”
The cost of the private automobile goes
beyond financial and environmental con-
siderations.
7
Figure 5 illustrates annual auto
deaths and injuries.The world total is about
1.2 million deaths and about 40 million in-
juries yearly. In the U.S. about 40,000 people
die each year in auto-related accidents.
There are hundreds of thousands of
people injured in auto accidents who never
fully recover, many condemned to a wheel-
chair for the rest of their lives. Deaths and
injuries are even higher in theThird World
where the infrastructure to support the car
paradigm is not as well developed as in the
U.S. As the car begins to penetrate societ-
ies such as China and India, we can only
expect that pollution, injuries and deaths
will increase.
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1977
2001
Home to work
Shopping
F
amily/personal business
Social and recreational
All purposes
Home to work
Shopping
F
amily/personal business
Social and recreational
All purposes
1.3
2.1
2.0
2.4
1.9
1.1
1.8
1.8
2.1
1.6
Vehicle Occupancy 1977 and 2001 (personspervehicle)
Figure 4: Change in Occupancy 1977 to 2001 (personspervehicle)
Worldwide there are close to 1.2 million deaths and 40 million injuries each year from traffic accidents and there is a strong correlation between
the wealth of a country and its relative automotive safety.
Figure 5: Worldwide Traffic Fatalities and Injuries in 1998
Instead of improving, the occupancy level of our vehicles has decreased since 1977. Only
by increasing this level can we accommodate our need to use less oil and produce fewer
Page 4
PAGE 4 : NEW SOLUTIONS
APRIL 2007, NUMBER 12
NewAutomotiveOptions
It is likely that oil supplies will be virtually
exhausted in about 40 years at the cur-
rent rate of consumption. Although the
internal combustion engine, now into its
second century of use, is being constantly
improved, it does not appear to have the
potential to do more than its historical
1.5% per year mileage increase.
Many people hope for some kind of
technological breakthrough.The favorite,
under development for more than 30 years,
is the hydrogen fuel cell car. But after so
many decades of failed promises, its success
is unlikely. Only a few hundred have been
built as experimental models.This may
well be one of the longest technological
proposals in history with the least amount
of progress. Only the futile efforts for fusion
power offer a similarly hopeless effort.
Electric cars are another hoped-for
option but they too have been around
almost as long as the automobile itself, with
only minor improvements. In the 1990s,
under pressure of California law, several
auto manufacturers built about 4,000
electric cars, most of which have now been
scrapped.The electric car has always been
limited by battery technology and hoped for
breakthroughs have not materialized.
A recent development is the successful
hybrid car, based on the combination of a
gasoline engine and an electric drive, both
well-researched technologies.Two problems
face the hybrid. One is the tendency to use
the electric engine for faster acceleration
rather than mileage improvements.The
other is the small numbers being purchased.
After 10 years, only about a million hybrids
had been shipped through 2006, about
one out of every 750 cars in the world.
Possibly in 5-10 years, 1% of the total
fleet might be hybrids.This does not seem
adequate, considering oil may peak in the
next five years.
A hybrid fleet might give a 20-40%
overall improvement in gas mileage. But,
as said before, the increasing growth in the
number of cars cancels out any mileage
improvement.
In recent years, proposals have been
made for what is called a “Pluggable Hybrid
Electric Vehicle (PHEV)” based partially
on the work of Dr. Andrew Frank at the
University of California - Davis. Frank
modified several vehicles by adding batteries
that allowed them to operate in either a
gasoline or electric mode.This is proposed
as a logical and straightforward extension
of the hybrid concept. However, since the
electric component of the typical hybrid is
essentially a form of extra power for the gas
engine under heavy driving loads, it funda-
mentally differs from the classic electric car.
An electric car requires a much larger
battery and one which is subject to a much
heavier load than is the case with a hybrid.
The fact that a hybrid system successfully
uses batteries in a particular way does not
mean that an electric car (with much larger
batteries) combined with a gasoline engine
can be designed and built quickly. A heavily
promoted modifiedToyota Prius could
not be driven at a speed above 34 mph on
electricity.
8
But most important, such a car with
its heavy dependence on pure battery
operation just shifts where the CO
2
is
produced, replacing gasoline burned by the
engine with electricity generated through
the national power system. Since 50% of
electricity is generated from coal, 20% from
natural gas, and 20% from uranium, the
electricity used by a pluggable hybrid is
generating CO
2
at the power plant roughly
in the same amounts as is generated from
the tailpipe of a gasoline engine.
9
As the car’s contribution to global warm-
ing and the threat of dwindling fossil fuels
becomes more obvious, the hyping of new
auto technology, whether it is the fuel cell
or a pluggable hybrid, delays what is really
needed – cultural change. People assume (as
advertising and even our government tell
them) that there is no need to modify their
habits since the new technology is presum-
ably “close at hand.”They are led to believe
that there is no need to change their behav-
ior and, of particular concern to automobile
and oil corporations, there is no need to
reduce consumption by buying smaller cars
and driving less.
Our current CAFE (Corporate Average
Fuel Economy) standards were passed by
Congress in 1975, just a couple of years
after the beginning of the first energy crisis.
We have been in the new energy crisis now
for at least five years and Congress has failed
to address the issues, leaving the responsibil-
ity for intelligent action to individuals.
ResultsofthePrivateAuto
Paradigm
It is difficult to realize how something that
is so ubiquitous and popular can also be so
damaging and harmful. Cars have played
a major role in destroying community, a
loosely used term that represents a feeling of
home, of family and neighborhood. With
the private automobile,
10
people are now
footloose and “free.” We have speed and
mobility but have lost community
relationships. We have chosen the freedom
of the individual over the integrity and
support of the community.
Our culture includes an idea of freedom
known as “the freedom of the open road.”
A rite of passage for teens to become men
and women is getting a license to drive.The
automobile allows a young person to leave
their “community,” to experiment with high
speed, and, removed from their family, with
sex and drugs.The automobile is constantly
being marketed to them. Our culture has
accepted this so-called freedom for our
children, ignoring the damage and danger
to their well-being.
The greatest fear of parents is not drugs
or pregnancy but death or injury in a
car accident. And no wonder parents are
...the electricity used by a pluggable
hybrid is generating CO
2
at the power
plant roughly in the same amounts as
generated from the tailpipe of a
gasoline engine.
Page 5
NUMBER 12, APRIL 2007
NEW SOLUTIONS : PAGE 5
Our urban sprawl has no precedent in
history, so the feasibility of a mass transit
system has yet to be proven – a true mass
transit system for the U.S. today may, in
fact, be impossible. In addition, the energy
savings of mass transit, in the context of
implementing such a system in today’s con-
figuration of cities and urban sprawl, may
be highly overrated. Figure 6 shows that
existing mass transit systems do not provide
significant fuel savings.
11
It depicts the Btus
of energy per passenger mile (assuming
average passenger densities) for each type
of transportation.
As previously noted, it is not obvious
that a mass transit system can be imple-
mented on top of our current sprawl. The
mantra of “We need light rail” provides
no evidence that a light rail system would
work. Modeling of this complex system is
required but has not been done to date.
That leaves us with the private car as
the only option. In spite of its numerous
benefits, the many conveniences and the
sense of freedom associated with the auto-
mobile, it is unlikely that the concept of the
private car, as we know it today, is viable for
the future.Traffic is worsening all over the
world. We can’t continue using a machine
that has been so devastating for the planet.
As energy resources deplete and pollution
worsens even a 100 to 200 mpg automobile
cannot be the main vehicle for billions
of people.
Another option is needed.
concerned – almost every beginning driver
in the U.S. has an accident. Parents don’t
want their children to be among the 40,000
lives lost each year or the 2 million injuries,
many permanent and crippling.
Because we crave what the car provides,
we have accepted the destruction of our
communities, the negative impact on family
life and the deaths and injuries. But now
the private car is threatening to destroy life
on the planet as climate change becomes
a critical problem. Peak Oil and climate
change are challenging our current transport
paradigm – without their threat, it is incon-
ceivable for Americans to consider that life
might be worthwhile without a private car.
TheRoleofMassTransit
At first glance, mass transit appears to be a
possible and obvious alternative. European
cities are often praised for their superior
transit systems.The New York City subway
supposedly offers an alternative to the
private car. But in all the cities with mass
transit systems, there is still a growing car
population. Streets are becoming more
crowded, and far more expenditures are
made on roadways than subways and buses.
Subways and other forms of mass transit
today are only supplemental to the car.
High density is required for mass transit.
In successful past implementations, resi-
dential developments were laid out in dense
corridors, typically along a rail or streetcar
line. Between those corridors were open
spaces and farms.The ideal configuration
was analogous to a wheel, the hub being
where people went to work and shopped,
while the spokes represented where they lived.
When the private car became popular,
the areas between the spokes were more
accessible and were eventually filled in.
Food growing was transferred further and
further away from where people lived.This
led to urban sprawl, making mass transit
more difficult. After some time, there was
no longer any attempt to build along mass
transit lines, so today they have mostly faded
or disappeared.
PeakOilandClimate
Change:ANewTransport
Paradigm
The world is threatened with the combina-
tion of declining fossil fuel resources and
a climate that is already severely damaged
by the products of fossil fuel burning.
The damage is already so bad that severe
restrictions may have to be placed on the
consumption of the remaining fossil fuels,
making the need for alternative transport
systems even more important. A new
transport paradigm would place the highest
priority on minimizing the use of fossil
fuels, a priority higher than convenience,
speed, or personal “freedom.”
At the same time, a new approach could
solve some of the problems of the existing
system. For example, it could be much safer.
A new system could protect people from
irresponsible drivers – something that is
not possible today. It could allow parents
to retain control over the safety of their
children’s lives a little longer. It could also
give people precedence over vehicles. Walk-
ing, cycling, and buses could be made more
convenient and cars less convenient, revers-
ing the trend of the last century.This differs
from most of today’s proposed solutions
that simply involve combinations of mass
transit and the private automobile.
No viable approach can be a one-for-one
replacement of the current car fleet with
more efficient ones. It would take decades
to replace the 210 million vehicles in the
U.S. with some superior version, even if
such a version were already on the drawing
board. However, it might be possible to
convert the existing private car to public use
for a jitney system.
Figure 6: Mass Transit Over-
rated (Btuperpassengermile)
PrivateCar
3,549
LightTruck(SUV)
7,004
BusTransit
4,160
Airplane
3,587
AmtrakTrain
2,935
RailTransit
3,228
Mass transit offers only a small improvement
over private vehicles for personal travel, and
is hardly applicable.
A new transport paradigm would place
the highest priority on minimizing the
use of fossil fuels, a priority higher
than convenience, speed, or personal
“freedom.”
Page 6
PAGE 6 : NEW SOLUTIONS
APRIL 2007, NUMBER 12
TheSmartJitneyOption
The Smart Jitney is an intermediate tech-
nology which increases service and reduces
energy use with existing vehicles. It could
provide – anywhere, any time, any place –
pick up and drop off. It is not limited to
tracks, lines or schedules. It could also pro-
vide a very high level of security and safety.
A jitney is defined as a small bus that
carries passengers over a regular route on a
flexible schedule. Another definition of a
jitney is an unlicensed taxicab. Basically,
a jitney is a form of mass transit using
cars and vans, not passenger buses. Jitneys
typically are not required to travel specific
routes on a specific schedule as are trains,
buses and street cars.They are both ancient
and contemporary.
degradation, combined with reducing avail-
ability of oil, require an option that can be
implemented rapidly. A jitney system would
make it possible for people to continue to
travel fairly long distances to work, school
and for necessities if transportation fuels
were no longer available in the quantities
currently being consumed or if the dete-
riorating climate effects of CO
2
emissions
could no longer be tolerated.
SmartJitneyBenefits
One key benefit of the Smart Jitney would
be faster transit time. Commuters sitting
on any freeway in any large American city
(most of us) are aware of the stop-and-go
traffic at rush hour, averaging only a few
miles per hour for much of the journey. Use
of a Smart Jitney system could eliminate
three-fourths of the cars currently on the
road, and allow much more rapid flow of
traffic. Even the time for stopping to pick
up and drop off riders would be small rela-
tive to the time spent in the current conges-
tion. Scientists have developed many kinds
of ride optimization algorithms for complex
pickup and deliveries for both people
and materials.
A second benefit is that the Smart Jitney
would use the existing car fleet instead of
requiring all new vehicles. It is important
to begin thinking about passenger miles per
gallon, not car miles per gallon.Thus an
SUV getting 10 miles per gallon containing
six passengers is getting the same passenger
mpg as a Honda Insight with one passenger.
The Hirsch report
2
has pointed out that
replacing the current fleet could take 10 to
20 years.The high mileage cars that would
be needed to replace the current fleet are
not yet available and may never be, if one
considers the failed promise of the fuel cell
car and the marginal improvement of the
hybrid automobile.The Smart Jitney could
address the important task of improving
passenger miles per gallon by changing the
current car paradigm rather than waiting
decades to change the car miles per gallon.
The third major benefit is to drastically
reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.This
would help avoid economic disaster, lower
the chances of worldwide wars over fossil
fuel resources and, even more important,
reduce CO
2
emissions. Increasing the
passengers per vehicle substantially would
provide a very large reduction in such emis-
sion, helping to eliminate the specter
of global warming with its potential for
massive disasters and loss of life.
The Smart Jitney could address the
important task of improving passenger
miles per gallon by changing the
current car paradigm rather than
waiting decades to change the car’s
miles per gallon.
The fourth major benefit would be to
eliminate much of the current carnage
which is accepted as part of our ordinary
way of life. Just as we have accepted the
possibility of destruction of planetary life
by nuclear war or climate degradation, we
have accepted the huge number of deaths
and injuries associated with the private
automobile.
By monitoring driving in real time,
keeping records of driver performance,
enforcing speed limits and other laws via
Auto Event Recorders (AERs), lowering
speed limits to save gasoline and by many
other options which would be designed into
the system, the Smart Jitney could save tens
The concept of the Smart Jitney is simple: you
use your car, pass a test, apply a magnetic
sign to your car door and you’re off!
Where parking is an issue, parking spaces
could be reserved for Smart Jitney drivers and
their passengers.
A jitney system could basically increase
passenger occupancy from the current 1.5
persons per trip to 2-4 times that num-
ber. An increase of 2-4 times would allow
using one-half to one-fourth the number
of vehicles to achieve the same number of
passenger trips, removing most of the cars
on the road at any particular time and thus
substantially reducing fuel consumption
and CO
2
emissions.
A jitney’s advantage is that it could be
quickly implemented, using the existing
personal vehicle fleet. More and more evi-
dence says that the CO
2
reduction required
to stabilize the atmosphere may be as
high as 70-80 %. And the reduction must
begin soon. Non-linear increases in climate
Page 7
NUMBER 12, APRIL 2007
NEW SOLUTIONS : PAGE 7
of thousands of lives every year. Additional
lives could be saved because there would be
significantly less traffic and the best drivers
would be at the wheel.
SmartJitneyTechnology
An important advantage of the proposed
Smart Jitney is that the technology needed
for implementation is already available and,
for the most part, in mass production.The
vehicles are already available – existing cars.
Jitneys can be any vehicle, new or old, small
or large but with the minor addition of a
cell phone connected to the car.
Each passenger using the jitney system
would have a personal cell phone although
computer access or regular phone access
would also be available. Eventually, the cell
phone would include GPS capability as well
as an emergency call button for security.
Whenever the rider feels any sense of danger
or threat, punching the emergency call but-
ton would automatically transmit informa-
tion to the nearest law enforcement center
for assistance.
Initially there would be relatively small
adjustments to the existing vehicle fleet
and the ubiquitous cell phones currently
dominating communication. Reservation
tracking systems accessed by the rider’s and
driver’s cell phones (or via the Internet)
would need to be developed and installed
throughout the country.The reservation
system would control both the ride manage-
ment and bookkeeping of this new trans-
portation modality. Rides would be planned
and scheduled in a similar way to an airline
reservation, except in a more timely, local
and responsive manner.
An existing technology that would be
incorporated into the Smart Jitney system is
the Auto Event RecorderThe AER is analo-
gous to the flight recorders on airplanes.
AERs already exist on more recently manu-
factured automobiles.The NationalTrans-
portation Safety Board (NTSB) estimates
that 65 to 90 percent of all vehicles in the
United States contain some type of AER.
12
These systems record driving activity that is
taking place in real time including vehicle
speed.This information would provide the
basis for adding a new level of traffic safety
and could be fully implemented nationally.
SmartJitneyProcess
As previously noted, the Smart Jitney
system could be accessed by the Internet
or telephone. In either case, a request for
service would be initiated by the passenger
dialing a reservation number using their
cell phone (or the Internet) and entering a
pickup location and a destination loca-
tion along with desired times for pick up
and drop off. A fifth number to be entered
would be the level of service desired.
The Smart Jitney computer would
constantly be monitoring all cars that are
part of the system, including the number
of passengers, the destinations and the
vacant seats available. Once the analysis was
completed (a few seconds of calculation) the
rider would be assigned to a participating
vehicle.The driver of the vehicle would be
notified and provided the pickup location
and time, along with directions.
The rider would be picked up and
dropped off as requested. After the trip,
the rider would submit an evaluation by
cell phone or web, similar to the evaluation
used by the Internet based company E-Bay.
E-Bay’s method of evaluating customer
satisfaction and publishing the information
has eliminated many complaints because
people stopped buying from sellers with poor
delivery performance. By having both a
ride evaluation and AERs, driver records of
long-term performance would be available.
LevelsofService
The easiest and most efficient system would
be one where all riders take whatever ride is
available. It might be difficult for Americans
to share in such a completely democratic
jitney system.Therefore, different levels of
service would be required with at least three
levels provided in the initial system. Other
levels could be developed as the system
evolves.
The first level of service is more or less
random. Only the pickup and destination
locations are entered along with the time of
pickup and preferred time of drop off.The
rider would input the data and the system
would inform him or her of the car descrip-
Smart Jitney vehicles and drivers would be
evaluated in much the same way as E-Bay
users evaluate sellers.
When Cuba lost access to Soviet oil in the 1990s virtually every vehicle was put into use as a
jitney in an effort to solve their new transportation problem.
Page 8
PAGE 8 : NEW SOLUTIONS
APRIL 2007, NUMBER 12
tion and time of pickup.The rider would
accept the random assignment to the most
available vehicle.This level would allow for
the most possible rides and the quickest
service.
The second level of service would allow
a person to input preferences, requesting
rides with certain groups of people. Possibly
the most important would be for women to
be able to request rides with other women.
Men could also request non-coed trips.
Other options would be to limit selection
by requesting certain age groups. Still others
might want to put limits on the playing
of radios or wish to ride with people who
will be quiet. Any rider should be allowed
to select the mode that best suits them.
Of course, if a rider’s preferences were too
strict, availability of rides would decline.
The third level of service would be to
allow scheduling of rides in the future with
a specific set of people. For example, a
group of people with mutual interests who
have a predictable schedule on a regular
basis (such as work or school), would be
accommodated.This would mean that
for family outings, all could ride together.
Other levels of service would be added as
experience dictates.
TheSmartJitneyDriver
The Smart Jitney need not be implemented
as a separate business like a taxicab service
or a mass transit business. It is intended to
be a form of ride-sharing using existing pas-
senger vehicles and existing drivers. Anyone
with a good driving record could serve as a
jitney driver.
Overall, the number of people driving
should decrease significantly. Although
people could still drive and maintain an
automobile, it is expected that eventu-
ally most people would accept the role of
passenger. Certain limitations would be
required. For example, teenagers could not
be jitney drivers. Minimum age limits for
drivers would correspond to the age limits
set by insurance and rental car companies,
which reflect the very high accident rate of
young drivers.
More rigorous driving tests would be
administered to be qualified as a Jitney
driver. People with poor driving records, as
measured by accidents and traffic citations,
would also be barred from being Smart
Jitney drivers. People with DWI convic-
tions would not be permitted to be drivers
until some time had elapsed or some type
of re-qualification had been passed. People
with child molestation records could not be
drivers. Existing Smart Jitney drivers could
also lose driving privileges based on poor
driving or the use of intoxicants. Finally, not
everyone would want to be a jitney driver.
Drivers would be compensated for
providing the transportation service, with
the fee regulated just as mass transportation
fees currently are. An additional benefit
for drivers would be greater access to
dwindling fossil fuels and more flexibility
in transportation.
AddressingConcerns–
Security,SafetyandPrivacy
Evaluators of the Smart Jitney proposal
typically are concerned with issues of secu-
rity, safety, and privacy. In general, women
are more concerned than men, particularly
with regard to security. Other issues deal
with a feeling of loss, both of private time
while driving and the loss of the self-esteem
associated with ownership of a vehicle.
Americans have been taught to believe vehi-
cle ownership says something about who
they are.The automobile – for them – has
become far more than transportation – it
represents the good life. However, it might
be that it represents a form of addiction.
Increasingly, the private automobile
has also been responsible for the fears and
concerns many of our Smart Jitney evalu-
ators expressed. Its availability certainly
makes crime much easier – perpetrators can
be miles away from the scene of the crime
in minutes. Date rape becomes easier when
a man and woman are alone in a vehicle.
Moreover, the image of the private auto-
mobile, as presented in advertising, is typi-
cally one of power, speed and force. Cars are
sold on that basis, with strong emphasis on
the individual and implied contempt for the
community.The poor record of young male
drivers is possibly based more on driving
with a certain machismo image in mind
than from a lack of driving skill.
The Smart Jitney could serve as a vehicle
for cultural change as well as a new transporta-
tion modality. But to do so, security, safety
and privacy problems must be addressed.
The Smart Jitney program could also include trucks and other vehicles, for transportation of all
kinds of goods.
The automobile has become far more
than transportation – it represents the
good life. However, it might be that it
represents a form of addiction.
Page 9
NUMBER 12, APRIL 2007
NEW SOLUTIONS : PAGE 9
Country
Population
Murders
Rapes
Assaults
(millions)
per 100 K
per 100 K
per 100 K
US
300
4.3
30
764
Japan
130
0.5
2
34
Germany
82
1.2
9
142
France
63
1.7
14
176
UK
62
1.4
14
748
Italy
60
1.3
4
50
Canada
34
1.5
74
718
US/G6Ratio
3.8
2.5
3.3
US/JapanRatio
8.6
15.0
22.5
Figure 7: U.S. and G7 Violence Rates
Security
Security is a term that covers the risk and
danger from other people who, for whatever
reason, may intend some kind of harm to
our persons or psyches. Concerns about
personal security are not trivial. Figure 7
compares the members of the G-7, the
seven wealthiest countries in the world.
13
It shows that the U.S. has about four times
the murder rate, 2.5 times the rape rate
and 3.3 times the assault rate of the other
six countries. A comparison to Japan alone
shows that the U.S. has 8.6 times as many
murders per capita, 15 times as many rapes
per capita and 22.5 times as many assaults
per capita.
The U.S. is a very dangerous culture
and its citizens are more violent than the
majority of people in the rest of the world.
Women have good reason for concern. But
most American men, although feeling safer
than woman, must also take the necessary
precautions for living in a violent country.
“I wouldn’t ride with a man,” many
female reviewers said, stating openly their
fear of the violence in our culture. Initially,
the ability to choose to ride only with other
women must be a component of the Smart
Jitney system. Additionally, children and
minors must also be protected from bully-
ing or other anti-social behavior. Everyone
– men, women and children – must be
protected from the potential of violent or
bullying passengers.
At the completion of each ride, passengers
would be asked to rate their Smart Jitney
experience, covering such categories as the
condition of the vehicle and the skill and
suitability of the driver. With multiple pas-
sengers daily providing reviews, poor or
unsuitable drivers would quickly be identi-
fied and their jitney license taken away.
Eventually, selection of top-rated drivers
could become an option when scheduling
a ride. Obnoxious passengers would also be
identified by the rating system.
Safety
Safety in relationship to automobiles
refers to the accidents, deaths and injuries
that come from a myriad of causes includ-
ing auto and traffic equipment, roads, unin-
tentional driver errors and reckless drivers.
Initially, to insure vehicle safety, there would
be mandatory inspection of vehicles for
Smart Jitney licensing. Annual inspections
would also be required. Passenger reviews
would include questions on the apparent
suitability of the vehicle.
At first, Smart Jitneys would be existing
cars but eventually replacement vehicles
could be designed with a focus on safety.
Rather than more electronics for watching
TV in the car or automatically parking the
vehicle, collision avoidance electronics could
be implemented.
Automobile companies have always
given priority to speed, styling and image
over safety.The failure to set standard
bumper heights, to provide governors to
With multiple passengers daily provid-
ing reviews, poor or unsuitable drivers
would quickly be identified and their
jitney license taken away.
Security is a primary consideration, particularly for women in the U.S. given the high rates of
violence in this country compared to most other G6 nations.
A reduction in the number of car wrecks,
deaths and injuries could be one of the best
results of the Smart Jitney system.
maintain speed limits, and to limit perfor-
mance and weight to protect slower and
more frugal drivers (including those who
choose smaller cars) calls for some form of
regulation that places the priority on safety
at the expense of marketing features.
If the forty billion dollars a year spent
on automobile R&D were redirected from
styling changes, then major safety improve-
ments could be realized quickly. Further-
more, cars could be designed for longevity
and ease of repair, which would contribute
to reduced CO
2
emissions by minimizing
the amount of embodied energy expended
on the automobile fleet.
Traffic equipment and roads must be
carefully evaluated but are not the main
reason for accidents. Driver errors could
be dramatically reduced by setting a lower
speed limit, 50-55 miles per hour, the opti-
mum speed limit for efficient performance
of the internal combustion engine. Slower
moving vehicles with higher passenger
density would leave more of our streets
Page 10
PAGE 10 : NEW SOLUTIONS
APRIL 2007, NUMBER 12
available for bicycles and also reduce the risk
of riding them. Irresponsible drivers would
quickly be eliminated by the rating system.
Through a shift to ride-sharing, the
nation could set a high priority on reducing
highway carnage. Legislation and market
demand for safe jitney vehicles could force
new safety standards from the automobile
manufacturers.
Privacy
Privacy refers to people’s need to main-
tain the confidentiality of their personal
identification including name, employer or
place of residence. Whereas safety refers to
the damage done by irresponsible drivers
and passengers, a breach in privacy refers to
people intruding in one’s life through inap-
propriate access to their personal data.
In modern times, real privacy is increas-
ingly limited even though we have a sense
of it in our private cars and homes. Internet
access and phone records, along with other
private information, can now be purchased
by businesses, corporations and government
agencies such as the CIA and NSA. Market-
ing of people’s personal information is now
somehow acceptable, and viewed simply as
a business opportunity.The 2006 Hewlett-
Packard scandal on “pretexting” shows how
easy it is for people’s personal information
to be obtained.
With people sharing rides with strangers
on a daily basis, the protection of privacy
will be a challenge.The Smart Jitney system
would utilize the same methods of anonym-
ity and protection as banks or any other
institution promising confidentiality, with
the same caveat – “We cannot absolutely
guarantee that your ride sharing informa-
tion will not one day be inadvertently
revealed or stolen from us.”
Infractions of privacy would be traced
back in the ride-sharing system by reviewing
records and appropriate responses taken.
ImplementationStrategies
Implementing a system of this complexity
would not be difficult. At least one rental
car company, Zipcar.com, has an Internet
system with some of the features proposed
for the Smart Jitney – scheduling with
many options and tracking cars via GPS.
In the United Kingdom, liftshare.com
administers a ride-sharing program which
matches riders and loads to cars and trucks
around the country, utilizing phone and
Internet connections. Liftshare has more
than 150,000 individuals and businesses
as members. And, based in Germany, Mit-
fahrzentrale.de offers ride-sharing through-
out Europe to its 600,000 members.
The technology effort is far less than
that associated with creating a new video
game for teenagers. An 18-month feasibil-
ity model could be done for approximately
$500,000. Prototype systems could be
made available a year after that with expen-
ditures of a few million dollars.This is a
much lower-risk effort than building fuel
cell cars or beefing up the national coal-
intensive power system for battery vehicles.
However, there will be enormous resis-
tance to the concept as it will require a para-
digm shift that will include changing the
legal system, the law enforcement system,
and all aspects of the transportation system.
Because of this resistance, a grassroots effort
to develop the system may be required. A
cooperative public development, similar
to that of the LINUX computer operating
system, may be the best way to achieve early
implementation.
All development to date onThe Smart
Jitney has been put into the public domain,
as an “open source” approach is desirable.
Hardware changes are minor and, should
manufacturers with vested interests be
reluctant to develop the ideal products,
existing technology can be adapted. Once
the system is underway, the market may
find and develop lucrative options outside
the purview and control of major auto
manufacturers. An effort by a few hundred
systems engineers and programmers could
lead to this paradigm shift in an amazingly
short time.
TheSmartJitney–Long
TermImplications
The combination of Peak Oil and Climate
Change challenges both the last century’s
industrial economy and rapid growth. It
is becoming ever more apparent that this
economy is based on a concept of no
physical limits.
The accepted view is that the world
will never run out of fossil fuels, or, if it
does, technology will find replacements.
Yet, as the world peak in oil production
approaches, no clear replacements are visible,
and many of the alternatives presented are
themselves finite, merely delaying the reality
of physical limits.
In terms of climate change, popular
wisdom and practice have been that the
earth and air are adequate depositories for
toxins from fossil fuel use.These so-called
“sinks” have been viewed as essentially
limitless. However, the accelerating increase
in CO
2
emissions worldwide and the rapid
melting of polar ice suggest the “sinks” are
getting full.
The use of fossil fuels changed the world
from one of smaller more local communi-
ties with limited mobility and resources to
one of large urban concentrations with high
mobility. Goods and food are shipped from
thousands of miles away. High mobility is
based on the private car with its continuous
use of significant quantities of gasoline.
The advantages of this way of living are
becoming more and more questionable.
Low energy ways of living will need to
include many changes, such as devolution
from concentrated urban centers to smaller
communities and local food supplies. Even-
tually a pattern of smaller neighborhoods
and towns with a focus on walking and
bicycling will be more the norm.This is not
...the Smart Jitney system would utilize
the same methods of anonymity and
protection as banks or any other institu-
tion promising confidentiality, with the
same caveat...
Page 11
NUMBER 12, APRIL 2007
NEW SOLUTIONS : PAGE 11
References
1. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/
mi_m3165/is_4_42/ai_n16116806
2. http://www.mnforsustain.org/oil_
peaking_of_world_oil_production_study_
hirsch.htm
3. http://energy.senate.gov/public/
index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.
Testimony&Hearing_ID=1604&Witness_
ID=4548
4. http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2006/
One-Billion-Cars17apr06.htm
5. Transportation Energy Data Book, 25th
Edition, 2006, page 8-11, Center for
Transportation Analysis, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory; http://cta.ornl.gov/
data/index.shtml
6. Transportation Energy Data Book, 25th
Edition, 2006, page 8-12, Center for
Transportation Analysis, Oak Ridge
National Laboratory; http://cta.ornl.gov/
data/index.shtml
7. http://international.fhwa.dot.gov/
ipsafety/ipsafety.pdf
8. http://www.calcars.org/conversions-
factsheet.pdf
9. http://www.communitysolution.org/
pdfs/NS9.pdf, page 9
10. Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam,
Simon & Schuster; 2001
11. Transportation Energy Data Book,
25th Edition, 2006, tables 2-11 and 2-12,
Center forTransportation Analysis, Oak
Ridge National Laboratory; http://cta.ornl.
gov/data/index.shtml
12. http://www.detnews.com/2005/
autosinsider/0510/03/A01-335316.htm
13. http://www.communitysolution.org/
pdfs/NS7.pdf, page 3
a return to some previous period in human
history. Medical science and other advances
will not be abandoned even if we drive less
and share vehicles.
The Smart Jitney may start as a short-
term emergency solution within the existing
infrastructure, since it will allow us to keep
the same patterns of living. Any inconve-
nience and discomfort we may experience
will be overshadowed by the possibility
of stopping planetary degradation and its
threat to basic survival. In the long run, the
Smart Jitney could evolve into some mode
of transportation not yet envisioned. It
could help serve the larger physical commu-
nity in the future as an intra-city mecha-
nism for longer travel. It’s possible that the
evolution from an emergency measure to a
key component of a jitney-based mass tran-
sit system, within the context of a decentral-
ized local way of living, will naturally occur.
Summary
Our culture has declined in many ways.
Skills like politeness, good manners,
courtesy and chivalry have atrophied.
Misbehaving in public is “cool.” Conversing
with strangers used to be an art form and
children were taught such social skills. One
of our principle cultural values is competi-
tion which is also the key principle of our
economic system. Cooperation, a key value
in other cultures, is viewed as a sign of
weakness in America. Walking or getting
in a car with a stranger or riding a bus is
just an unexpected inconvenience in other
cultures. For Americans, it is seen as a threat
to who we are.
What will be the effects of Peak Oil
and Climate Change? Will society make
a choice to be more competitive or more
cooperative? Or, as happened in the Great
Depression, will people simply begin coop-
erating and helping each other? Peak Oil
and Climate Change will be the test case of
people’s reactions – they could be the basis
for a new way of living or it could become
a dog-eat-dog world.
We are at the end of the era of the pri-
vate car, the ultimate example of American
consumer values and the most destructive
device ever made.The Smart Jitney can
replace the car and help restore community.
Men will have to start behaving well to
women. Society may have to give up pro-
fane language in public, like smoking was
disallowed in public places. Just as people
cannot drive when drunk, they will not be
able to ride when drunk. Such social criteria
must be imposed even though it is counter
to our so-called freedom, which is often
nothing more than a license to be offensive.
But if implemented properly, the Smart
Jitney ride could be a real pleasure.
Initially the Smart Jitney may be a
traumatic change to the current mode of
private cars. But the threat of energy short-
ages, loss of jobs, and life threatening climate
change can provide the motivation for such
a system.The concept and design are such
that long term benefits for the environment
and society will accrue. Eventually, the per-
sonal advantages in terms of time, safety
and economics will become apparent
and this transport approach will
prove to be superior to the exist-
ing private system as it helps
save us from climate disaster.
– Pat Murphy
This is not a return to some previous
period in human history. Medical science
and other advances will not be aban-
doned even if we drive less and share
Page 12
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You might also visit our film website: www.powerofcommunity.org..
Resources
The Power of Community: How
Cuba Survived Peak Oil
This fascinating and empowering
film shows how communities pulled
together, created solutions, and ulti-
mately thrived in spite of decreased
oil imports from the USSR. ByThe
Community Solution. Order at www.
powerofcommunity.org.
PeakOilBooks
The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan
to Avert OilWars,Terrorism, and
Economic Collapse by Richard
Heinberg, September 2006
The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide
and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing
Times by Albert Bates, October 2006
Beyond Oil:TheView From
Hubbert’s Peak by Kenneth S.
Deffeyes March, 2005
The Final Energy Crisis. edited by
Andrew McKillop, April 2005
The Long Emergency: Surviving the
End of the Oil Age, Climate Change,
and Other Converging Catastrophes
of theTwenty-first Century by James
Howard Kunstler April, 2005
The Collapsing Bubble: Growth And
Fossil Energy by Lindsey Grant, Seven
Locks Press, May, 2005
Twilight in the Desert:The Com-
ing Saudi Oil Shock and theWorld
Economy by Matthew Simmons,
June, 2005
The EmptyTank: Oil, Gas, Hot Air,
and the Coming Global Financial
Catastrophe by Jeremy Leggett,
November, 2005
OtherRecommended
Resources
Design on the Edge:The Making
of a High-Performance Building
by David W. Orr
Your Money orYour Life:Transform-
ingYour Relationship with Money and
Achieving Financial Independence by
Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
The Small-Mart Revolution: How
Local Businesses Are Beating the Global
Competition by Michael H. Shuman
and Bill McKibben
The Logic of Sufficiency byThomas
Princen
Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on
a Finite Earth by Jim Merkel
The Conserver Society: Alternatives for
Sustainability byTedTrainer
The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the
Good Life by Cecile Andrews
The Small Community, Arthur
Morgan, 1942 (available from CSI)
The Long Road, Arthur Morgan, 1936
(available from CSI)

Jitneys in Seattle discussed on Seattle PI Forum

From the PI
Jitneys:Another idea pushed by some opposed to Light Rail and even current bus systems
#1503678

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 10/21/07 3:06 p.m.

Now, I admit that our current bus system does not serve everybody, but their are ways to make it better. I was listening to the Roads and Transit debate on the October 15th edition of KUOW's The Conversation, and one caller said that instead of rail, we should de-centralize our bus system, as that will be the only way to get people from where they live to where they are going. Now the caller also was the one that said the Road Construction itself would cause congestion!

Now I am all for jitneys, but not as a cure-all that displaces every fixed-route in the Metro system. I am all for Jitney Stands at SOUNDER stations in Tacoma, Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn, Kent, Tukwilla, Seattle, Edmunds, Mukilteo, and Everett. The Shared Taxi has it's uses, and it's disadvantages. It will not replace routes like the 7, 15, and other heavily used Metro routes.

The caller pushed a blog advocating Jitneys, and not much on it.

psrtransportation.blogspot.com/

There was this link to an old John Niles commentary attacking Rail Transit.

www.globaltelematics.com/ihov2.htm

Jitneys, also known as Shared Taxis, have there uses, and one is ironically, to answer the argument that Light Rail will only serve those who live right near the stations. That helps fuel the argument that nobody will ride it. Now regular bus routes would be re-done to better serve those stations, but maybe it might be worth trying a market-based approach to provide more coverage within a certain perimeter around the stations, especially in areas that have little bus service. Pierce Transit should try it out to make Bus Plus even more effective.

Here is a piece on the idea of a Smart Jitney, which looks more like a regular car than a shared taxi that has the capacity to meet our needs.

www.communitysolution.org/transport.html

Now I would like to see employers use the Commute Trip Reduction Act, maybe some amendments to make more employers covered under it. Now most would opt for more vanpools, but some large employers might start their own bus system, like Microsoft did. The other employers that might be able to do it, are Boeing and Paccar.

seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/330745_m
sfttranspo07.html

Reply Report violation
#1503924

Posted by Tcmetro at 10/21/07 4:10 p.m. in reply to: #1503678

Jitneys should be put in at suburban locations, but in the city, bus routes are usually located 1/4-1/2 of a mile away from each other, and with decent sidewalks, they wouldn't be used much, except in bad weather. In some cities Jitneys are the transit system, but this is typically where streets are two narrow, the city is small, and highly dense, and highly centralized, and also is impovershed countries.
Reply Report violation
#1503976

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 10/21/07 4:30 p.m. in reply to: #1503924

The caller that made the suggestion was calling from South King County, but 7-15 years ago, some might have called that area impoverished, I know that a show on King 5 made fun of it, and Ballard.(Not me, I got an uncle that lives in Auburn) SOUNDER continues to prove it can attract riders, and it provided transit access to Seattle that Pierce Transit never thought of, or justified. I do not think a Jitney would have done that. Now SOUNDER formed vanpools to get people from Bonney Lake to the SOUNDER stations.

Also, another reason why Streetcar and Bus Operators had the old Jitneys regulated into extinction in most American Cities? They were racing ahead of their streetcars and Buses, stealing passengers. Think anybody would want that in this day and age? Now I would want safeguards in place against somebody trying that today. Now they would need a fleet of double-decker buses to probably steal passengers from SOUNDER, and would have to speed to catch up with SOUNDER, so I would go for ticketing bus drivers for speeding, possibly Metro drivers too, like they used to.(I heard the story of the Trolleybus driver who stood up to a cop once for not having the tip of his pole clear the intersection before the light went red, kind of ended the ticketing of bus drivers).
Reply Report violation
#1509319

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 11/1/07 2:52 p.m. in reply to: #1503976

One area where a Jitney experiment should be tried, is King County Metro pulling out of local service in South King County, and East King County East of Issaquah and Woodinville. Maybe even not put limits on the amount of Jitneys, but still enforce tough safety standards. See if it works out. Then if it does, extend it to under-served areas of Pierce and Snohomish Counties.
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#1521734

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 11/21/07 7:36 p.m. in reply to: #1509319

With the failure of Prop 1, and if any Regional Board gets set up, maybe this concept should be taken up, to enhance local service in areas that are not doing too well, or have no local service.
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#1534649

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 12/12/07 6:45 p.m. in reply to: #1521734

Now one route that could use a smaller bus is the portion of the 25 between the University Bridge and Montlake Bridge. There is a place on that route where one has to stop to let the other bus pass, because it is too narrow.
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#1535116

Posted by Kurosawa at 12/13/07 11:08 a.m. in reply to: #1503678

Private jitneys open up a regulation nightmare. As it is, there are all kinds of problems with "town cars," with many using them to get around the taxi cab regulations and license requirements. Many town car drivers have no insurance and expose passengers to liability and risk in the case of accident and injury.

The expansion of the light rail system will naturally result in more cross-town feeder buses and area shuttles linking to LRT stations. That could obviate any need for "jitneys".

Some, of course, think that a third-world transportation system would be great...
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#1542353

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 12/26/07 7:31 p.m. in reply to: #1535116

Mass Transit Magazine has a little interesting article on privatization of Mass Transit. One thing is for certain, Commuter Rail and Light Rail might connect suburbs built around the automobile with each other, but internal circulation might be a problem, as the cul de sacs and outher obstructions are a bane to fixed-route services. Also fuel and labor costs will be a big factor, ironically as fuel costs are driving suburban dwellers to what public transit options they do have.

www.masstransitmag.com/print/Mass-Transi
t/Service-Strategies--Automation-and-Pri
vatization-in-Public-Transit/1$4989
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#1542655

Posted by Kurosawa at 12/27/07 12:00 p.m. in reply to: #1542353

In that case, I think you go to on-call shuttle-vans which don't follow a particular route. With an automated system, you could simply call in or connect through the Internet and give the particulars of your trip, similar to how Trip Planner works. You'd be automatically added to the driver's itinerary and you'd be provided with an approximate time for your pickup and your arrival. You could have your whole trip planned out for you, including transfers. Destinations could include a light rail station, a BRT/express bus stop, any regular bus line in the area, or other main destinations (such as shopping centers/districts, hospitals/clinics, theatres, etc.).

People could go for that, particularly with the escalating cost of gasoline and parking adding extra incentive.

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#1560911

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 1/17/08 6:37 p.m. in reply to: #1542655

You have a point there. I would go for demonstrating such a system with any ST Package that goes to the voters, include mandating making the liscenses available for it.

The New Mobility Agenda suggests the idea of dynamic ridesharing as a primary mode, but using the communication tools we now have.

www.xtransit.org/
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#1571878

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 2/4/08 10:14 p.m. in reply to: #1560911
Last edited at 2/4/08 10:16 p.m.

Here is one such operation in Britain, called Texxi. They offer multiple types for different journey needs.

www.texxi.info/pro/texxiinf.nsf/pages/Mo
des
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#1583507

Posted by diehardTRANSITadvocate at 2/24/08 12:12 a.m. in reply to: #1571878

Although Buses and Streetcars will get the nod for the land-side connections for the King County Ferry District, Jitneys would have a role as well, especially on Vashon Island. A shared taxi system would probably be more effective than The 117 and other routes on the island. The dispatching system should be an advanced hybrid version of what taxis use, and Access Paratransit.

Smart Jitneys

he Smart Jitney is a system of efficient and convenient ride sharing that addresses in the short-term the problem of transportation in a post-peak oil world. The system utilizes the existing infrastructure of private automobiles and roads due to the time, expense, and difficulty of building a new transportation infrastructure amongst such a dispersed population. The goal of the system is to insure that each private car always carries more than one person per car trip, optimally 4-6. This would cut auto gasoline usage by an estimated 80 percent and commute time by an average of 50 percent within two years.

The Smart Jitney system would use cell phones and the Internet for ride reservations and coordination. Riders and drivers would have modified cell phones with a Global Positioning System (GPS) function. Software experts from the military command-and-control communication systems would join engineers and programmers from the nation's airline and automobile reservation systems to create the tracking and scheduling database for a new nationwide human transport system using existing cars.

In a Smart Jitney system, every person may be a "driver" or a "rider" at different times. The system would connect drivers with riders to insure optimum routing and minimum time delays. Each person who wants to take a trip, whether to work, school, shopping, or recreation, would use his or her cell phone or web browswer to request a ride from the system. The system will locate the appropriate vehicle and driver to pick up and deliver the rider (or riders) making the request. Drivers are those who have planned trips of their own and need riders to fulfill the requirements for ride-sharing individual trips will be limited in a time of energy scarcity.

As the system develops, a huge decrease in roadway accidents and fatalities can be expected. This could result in substantially fewer insurance payouts and, hopefully, a concurrent reduction in premiums. Additionally, the nation would experience a major reduction in road construction and maintenance since wear and tear would be reduced. We expect that, as people became aware of the system's benefits, any sense of sacrifice would diminish, replaced by a sense of excitement.

A completely developed Smart Jitney Car System will take some years and some millions of dollars. Currently, a detailed 15-page specification of the Smart Jitney is available in our New Solutions report #12. This specification covers the function, vehicle and driver rules, police involvement, privacy, dispatching, reporting, benefits, societal changes, cultural barriers, and financing and implementation.

We are next focusing on developing a more in-depth specification and implementation plan. It will address the specific design issues in order to define a rough specification from which pilot projects can be developed. A similar specification must be developed for legal implications and include a summary of the changes in laws that must be made to achieve full scale implementation.

The Smart Jitney

July 21, 2007

By Pat Murphy, Community Solutions

Executive Summary
Two major world changes, Peak Oil and Global Warming, make it unlikely that the modern industrialized, urbanized, and centralized way of life focused on the private automobile can continue in the 21st century. Peak Oil refers to the depletion of fossil fuels and roughly marks the point in time when half the oil will be gone. There is general agreement that this will occur in the period of 2010 – 2020. At the current rates of use, all oil will be gone within 30-50 years. Similar peaking arguments apply to natural gas, coal and uranium although the time to complete depletion is some decades past the time for oil. Global Warming refers to increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that result from the burning of fossil fuels. There is general scientific consensus that global warming is caused by the massive amounts of fossil fuels being burned throughout the world.

The combination of these factors creates a near term crisis that brings into question the continued use of the private automobile. In the US, gasoline consumption is 140 billion gallons per year, resulting in about 3 trillion pounds of CO2 emissions yearly. Since the energy crisis of the 1970s, beginning with the 1974 Project Independence Act, billions of dollars have been spent in an attempt to find an alternative to the internal combustion engine. 30 years research in fuel cells and battery technology have been futile. Although major improvements in efficiency have been made, this has only led to increased car consumption as the private automobile replaced mass transit systems.

The private automobile as it exists today cannot be sustained. Mass transit alternative systems will take decades to develop and can have only limited utility in the cities and suburbs that have been built in the last 60 years. To develop light rail systems may not be practical within the current infrastructure of roads and buildings. And the cost will be trillions of dollars. Moving to a bus system will not be as difficult but the existing distribution of roads and buildings cannot be well served by such a system.

One alternative is to use the current road and automobile network to provide a form of mass transit. The average car trip in America contains 1.5 passengers, in vehicles that could contain 4-6 passengers. Car pooling and ride sharing systems attempt to address this issue but are largely ineffective in a world optimized for the private automobile. A reservations system analogous to that of air travel is needed. Such a system is possible only because of the now widely implement cell phone network and the common use of the cell phone itself.

The Smart Jitney will use this cell network and existing automobiles to provide an average passenger capacity of 4 or more per trip compared to the current 1.5. This will reduce gasoline consumption from 140 billion gallons per year to less than 50 billion gallons per year, saving approximately $270 billion per year.

The Smart Jitney – A Solution for Depleting Fossil Fuels

General Specification

Introduction:
In the film “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, Miguel Coyula, Cuban Architect, Urban Planner and Community Development Specialist, “The car will be a historical object. One day the car will appear and one day it will disappear”

Such a statement sounds incredulous to Americans. Get rid of the car? “Mad, impossible, a horrible thought, a threat to the American Way of Life” people might respond. Yet today the world is faced with problems so serious that the continuation of the species is now in question. The implications of Peak Oil, a concept unheard of until the last few years, seem to be a prelude to the next Great Depression. The Global Warming crisis, predicted for decades and becoming more certain each year, portends problems much more serious than a Great Depression. Worst case events may imply a Great Starvation.

If there is a single machine invention of the 19th and 20th century, the use of which has the greatest responsibility for the unfolding disasters, it would be the private automobile. More people have died in automobiles accidents in the US than in all the wars. There are about 720,000,000 cars in the world today, about 200 million of them in the United States. As the rest of the world attempts to duplicate the American way of living, 100s of million more cars will be added. And each one is a portable factory whose output is poisoning the atmosphere earth and threatening all life.

It is not only the environment that is being destroyed but the communities in which people are born, live and die. Since the advent of the automobile the classic centuries old way of living in harmony on a face to face basis in a place is declining. It is being replaced with huge extending suburbs within which one can only move by private automobile. People no longer know their neighbors. Their friends are scattered far and wide. The sense of a place is gone. Mobility has replaced conviviality.

The long range prospect for the automobile is not good. Fossil fuels are finite. Many may want to believe that Earth's cache of oil is limitless, but fact tells us otherwise. Careful scientific study now predicts that world oil production will peak – that is, reach the point at which half the world's oil is gone – probably within a decade.

The consequences of declining oil production and, eventually, depleted fossil fuel reserves, are perhaps catastrophic, in the industrialized nations, especially the United States. Americans must begin to design and implement a transportation system that greatly reduces the depletion speed of the remaining reserves of oil.

America could significantly slow oil depletion by significantly reducing, not the number of people, but number of vehicles on the road. The goal is to curtail the current redundancy of so many people driving individual vehicles to the same destinations.

The solution is to make the sharing of cars both convenient and efficient. One way to do this is by using the nation’s advanced communications technology to compile and disburse information about individual vehicles, their destinations, and their riders so vehicles can be shared.

A convenient, efficient, widespread ride-sharing program can slow oil depletion enough to buy the time – years and years of additional time – needed to make the transition from a centralized, city-based, fossil fuel intensive culture to a culture of decentralized smaller communities far less dependent on fossil fuels.

Getting Started
When the country feels the real pinch of declining oil production, it can be expected that the techniques of early generation transportation methods that exist in other parts of the world will be applied in America. This includes car pools, ride-sharing, well-managed and maintained mass transportation systems and better vehicle gasoline mileage. But for now, a state of denial prevails in the industrialized world, particularly in the United States. People refuse to heed the predictions of rapidly decreasing oil production. The nation’s failure to address oil depletion will bring a crisis that allows no time to develop something new and elaborate, something costly and slow to implement. For many Americans, the crisis may appear sudden, since most of us want to believe in a limitless supply of fossil fuels. Americans may attack and control other nations in the Middle East to sustain their belief. But when the nations finally awaken to the reality of depleted fossil fuels, quick action that results in systems that use existing infrastructure and widely available technology will be needed.

A well-designed ride-sharing program could be quickly implemented. "The Smart Jitney" would use the existing transportation infrastructure of private vehicles but insure that each car always carries more than one person per car, optimally 4-6. This country has no shortage of automobiles or roads. But the present average rider load of 1.5 (quote the OTA source) people per vehicle per trip demands a huge consumption of fuel. So few people in so many cars causes massive traffic problems – dangerous rush hours, huge traffic snarls – which further increase consumption.

The Smart Jitney would utilize the existing cell phone network as the interface between drivers, riders, and the routing system. Software experts from the military command-and-control communication systems would join engineers and programmers from the nation's airline and automobile reservation systems to create the tracking and scheduling database for a new nationwide human transport system using existing cars. Military satellite specialists would learn how to provide real-time information about traffic and weather conditions. Even the National Security Agency "listening systems" could be modified to offer information to the new transportation system.

Working in concert for the national good, all of the above can help avert the crisis or crises that dwindling fossil fuel reserves portend.

A Brief Description
The Smart Jitney system would use cell phones for ride reservations and coordination. Riders and drivers would have modified cell phones with a Global Positioning System (GPS) function, a technology already available in many cell phones because of federal emergency response mandates.

A special "vehicle cell phone" would become a permanent part of each vehicle. It would include a fixed identification code for the vehicle as well as readout capability for location and speed (modified GPS), which could be triggered by satellite systems or police and other emergency vehicles.

The Smart Jitney goals would be to reduce auto gasoline usage by 80 percent and commute time by an average of 50 percent within two years. As the system develops, a huge decrease in roadway accidents and fatalities can be expected. This could result in substantially fewer insurance payouts and, hopefully, a concurrent reduction in premiums. Additionally, the nation would experience a major reduction in road construction and maintenance since wear and tear would be reduced. It is expected that, as people became aware of the system's benefits; any sense of sacrifice would diminish, replaced by a sense of excitement.

The Cultural Barriers
In terms of technical effort, the Smart Jitney is not difficult. There are many computerized reservations systems, from the oldest – airplanes – to car rentals to tickets for sports and entertainment. And the benefits are obvious: less commute time, less cost, and less environmental harm. Some benefits could already be achieved simply by buying smaller cars. Unfortunately, the current trend is in the opposite direction, mostly because the private automobile provides psychological benefits that outweigh the simple need or desire to get from one place to another.

There are three main cultural barriers to rapid, easy change: privacy, individuality, and personal choice.

Privacy – In the following sections, note that a police patrol car could ticket the driver of a moving vehicle without stopping it, since the license number would allow a quick search of the data base to determine the driver. By simple extension, the patrol office could also identify the passengers. The potential misuse of the system will lead to fears of Gestapo-like practices and privacy invasions. People planning questionable liaisons or activities might worry that parents, spouses, bosses, or others could search the files for their location.

Americans are very sensitive to invasions of their privacy. Other cultures are less so. Japanese friends report that neighborhood police kiosks give them a sense of safety; providing their reasons for being in an area to a questioning police officer is not a concern. (Japan, of course, has a much lower crime rate than the U.S. and far fewer crimes of assault or passion.) On the other hand, most Americans seem to have passively accepted the invasion of their privacy by intelligence agencies and corporations. Each citizen has multiple dossiers held by businesses and government agencies, the contents of which they have no knowledge. In early 2006 it became know that phone conversations are being monitored by the National Security Agency.
It has become apparent from recent investigations leading to severe penalties to the finance industry that deleted E-mails are not eliminated: anything anyone sends by E-mail is available to some agency or corporation. The population seems to accept this.

But accepting the potential invasion of one's privacy by local law enforcement or employers or family will probably not be accepted so passively. Why the population in general might fear "local" intrusions more than those of big business and big government is a phenomenon not analyzed in detail. It is projected, however, that the reasons are quickly identifiable and that fears of invasions of privacy because of a program like the Smart Jitney can be alleviated.

Individuality – America is home to the "rugged" individual, the person who knows and insists on his or her "rights." People stroll through malls exercising their "right" to play boom boxes at maximum volume. Corporations and businesses have the "right" to run ads on TVs in public places and airlines to run them in their planes. The latest "right" is the right to talk on cell phones in public places, regardless of how others may be affected.

The constant exercise of "rights" in public places has led to an atmosphere of rude aggression. "Good manners" are a thing of the past, to be ridiculed and avoided so as not to be ostracized by one's peer group.

The loss of regard for others – of the failure to recognize when your "rights" are treading on the "rights" of somebody else – can be a severe cultural limitation on a ride-sharing system. Should a passenger be allowed to make sales calls on his or her portable phone during a Smart Jitney trip? What happens when a bubble gum popper shares a vehicle with other riders? What about smokers, drunks, the over-perfumed or under-washed?

For the Smart Jitney to work, people are going to have to re-learn how to behave towards others in small spaces.

Personal Choice – Americans lead "busy" lives; the stresses associated with that "busy-ness" are well known. When advertisers stoke America's love affair with the automobile, they often use images of sexuality, excitement, and adventure. But many a driver feels relaxed, at peace, when alone in the car. Consider the busy parent who, after a hectic morning, drops the children at school and now looks forward to the 30-minute commute to the office where pressure and activity will again dominate. Maybe she goes through the drive-thru for coffee and rolls, loads her favorite CD, and begins her commute with the knowledge that this is her best "alone" time of the day. It may be a hard habit to break.

But much of this is based on the absence of community in modern times. In a culture where competition is the watchword, simply the absence of other people can be restful. Yet in more community oriented culture, the experience of meeting the other is fundamental to their enjoyment of life. People can learn to be at ease with other people in social circumstances so that commuting with strangers can be viewed as an opportunity rather than as a conflict.

The System Specifications
In a Smart Jitney, every person may be a "driver" or a "rider" at different times. The Smart Jitney system would connect drivers with riders to insure optimum routing and minimum time delays.

Each person who wants to take a trip, whether to work, school, shopping, or recreation, would use his or her cell phone to request a ride from the system. The system will locate the appropriate vehicle and driver to pick up and deliver the rider (or riders) making the request. Drivers are those who have planned trips of their own and need riders to fulfill the requirements for ride-sharing. Individual trips would no be severely curtailed.

While discussing the myriad social and physical aspects of the system, nine sets of parameters were defined which are referred to as "rules." The classes of rules are: Function, Vehicles, Drivers, Riders, Police, Privacy, Dispatching, Fleet, and Reporting.

A. Function Rules
The Function Rules list the capabilities required for the system to work. The main functions available would be:

A1. Ride request - entering time, location, and destination or using information stored in the rider's phone memory for Most Frequent Destinations. The request would include the rider's special needs or wishes, if any, and space requirements, such as for luggage or packages or for extra large physical size.

A 2. Ride commitment - rider accepting time, location, and destination or an alternate ride if the requested one is not suitable.

A 3. Ride arrival notification - alerting the rider that the vehicle will arrive in, say, 2 minutes, allowing time to get to the street.

A 4. Check in - assuring that the correct rider and driver have found one another.

A 5. Check out - notification of the rider leaving the vehicle.

A 6. Emergency - asking for police assistance in case of accident or illegal/improper confrontation.

A 7. Transgression report - reporting smoking, drinking, or harassment violations.

A 8. Radio turnoff/other special requests - requesting no music, smoking, news radio programs, or other unwelcome stimuli.

A 9. Random ride request - available for pickup immediately at listed GPS locations.

A 10. Non-emergency accident notification - contacting dispatcher for towing services or accidents not requiring emergency service.

A person wanting a ride would enter the preferred time of departure and destination into his or her cell phone. Often, the request would be pre-programmed, including the typical time and destination for work or school. A short cut option would be to simply enter two telephone numbers – one being at the location of the pickup and the other at the destination location. The system would locate a nearby vehicle with available seating going close to the desired destination at close to the desired time. The driver would receive and accept the request and receive directions if needed. The rider would be told the time of pickup and get information about the driver and vehicle. The rider's phone would ring when the driver is getting close to the pickup.

The rider would be delivered at or near his or her destination. If direct ride scheduling is not possible, the rider could be dropped at a place closer to the final destination and request a second or third ride. A rider suddenly needing transportation could request a ride based on the GPS location given automatically by his or her cell phone.

A successful system will deal with accidents and transgressions by drivers or other riders. Having a "transgress" button on each cell phone to contact the authorities would prove a powerful deterrent to inappropriate behavior. Using the button would be a request for police to begin monitoring the vehicle as a further discouragement of aggression or other unwanted behavior.

B. Vehicle Rules

The vehicle rules apply to the vehicles in the Smart Jitney program. A Smart Jitney Vehicle's (CCV) role in the system includes:

B1. Rider Reporting - reporting rider arrival and departure times, and pickup and drop-off locations.

B 2. Vehicle Reporting - reporting the RSV's location, average speed, and load factor changes.

B 3. Other Vehicle Reporting - through use of radar or other technology, reporting other vehicles in unsafe proximity or otherwise being driven unsafely.

B 4. Police Response - responding to all police requests.

This reporting would be done via each RSV's cell phone. The accumulated telemetry would aid the central system in planning and dispatching.

C. Driver Rules

Drivers would be volunteers in the community with excellent driving records who would be paid a stipend to cover auto expenses and depreciation. Accidents, police records, or moving violations would be considered potential grounds for suspension of driving privileges. The drivers would:

C1. Pick Up-Drop Off scheduled riders

C2. Report No Shows and any relevant information (tardiness, confusion about location).

C3. Report Rider Behavior violations.

C4. Pay Penalties and Collect Bonuses based on his or her success.

C5. Accept Random Change - try to incorporate unplanned riders, those needing spur-of-the-moment rides, and unscheduled stops when requested to do so by the system.

C6. Insure Schedule Integrity – Drivers have the responsibility of keeping to the schedule of riders. In some cases random change would be acceptable to optimize convenience. But in many cases, people will be on tight schedules for work, doctor’s appointments, etc. The priority must be to maintain a level of service so that people can count on fulfilling time commitments.

The driver's reporting responsibility would work to weed out those riders who are rude, are habitual no-shows or late arrivals, or otherwise act as a drain on the efficiency of the system – and perhaps serve to encourage those riders to modify their behavior.

D. Rider Rules
Riders would go through an elementary screening process to determine their needs. Records would be kept for each individual, including records of complaints or commendations from other members of the ride-sharing community, both drivers and co-riders. Excessive violations would result in suspension or restriction of ride-sharing access.

The technical problems associated with such a vast new system are trivial compared with the human element. Americans are so isolated in their lifestyles that they avoid interactions with strangers, resulting in the need for a prescribed ethic of conduct. Some rules might be simple, such as no smoking. Others would be more controversial but necessary, such as a limit on perfume and a requirement for basic hygiene.

The rider's part of the bargain would be:

D1. Promptness - arriving promptly for pickups.

D2. Decorum - maintaining conversational decorum and basic politeness.

D3. Behavior - not smoking or playing personal media if it bothers others.

D4. Consideration - not wearing perfume and being reasonably clean.

D5. Reporting - reporting violations of safety or dangerous conduct by drivers or other riders.

A central database to correlate the upkeep of vehicles, misconduct by drivers, and notations about riders could result in a community that is mostly self-policing through access to information and subsequent peer pressure. Fair but rigorous reporting would tend to limit the traveling options of those who insist on their right to act in a manner not acceptable to all.

Such self-policing communities already exist. For example, technology workers restrict access to online information through peer complaints – a rudimentary model upon which to base Smart Jitney's protocol.

E. Police Rules

The Smart Jitney Program would greatly simplify traffic control and vehicle law enforcement. Traffic accidents and injuries would certainly decrease significantly if fewer cars used the highway system. Law enforcement responsibilities would include:

E1. Ticketing – of moving vehicles remotely.

E2. Enforcement - stopping vehicles, making arrests, investigating system violations.

E3. Investigation - performing corollary investigations involving use of the system for criminal activity.

The reporting functions built into the system will allow law officers to ticket a vehicle, without stopping it, for speeding or other offenses. The driver would be notified immediately via the vehicle cell phone. Witnesses would be automatically available from the rider records. Since the driver has his or her own identifying cell phone, the police could match the driver with the vehicle and access a database of driving and other records – in seconds, with a properly designed system. The police could initiate status readout from the cars under observation, with the vehicles easily identifiable visually from existing satellites.

A high-level traffic monitoring and reporting system would have effects on crime not vehicular in nature. When automobile escape routes from crime scenes are monitored as a matter of course, the criminal's options become limited. Smart Jitney's personal cell phones, all equipped with emergency signal capacities and GPS transmitters, would give crime victims a chance to summon assistance quickly. With traffic no longer clogging transportation arteries, emergency personnel could respond much more quickly. A drastic drop in crime rates with minimal invasion of the privacy of the law-abiding can be expected.

F. Privacy Rules

Since 9/11, government agencies have increased the monitoring of civilians, challenging their right to privacy. Smart Jitney's tracking services must be used for traffic efficiency and crime detection only, and not by any American secret police agency that arises. The current political situation, including Congressional approval of expanded wire-tapping powers by the Office of Homeland Security, makes privacy a sobering issue in the implementation of Smart Jitney. Privacy laws would be needed to maintain:

F1. Confidentiality - keeping trip records confidential except for criminal prosecution.

F2. Data Security - allowing compilation of data to better manage the system while protecting people's privacy.

Smart Jitney records must only be made available based on appropriate requests from law enforcement personnel. Unfortunately so much information is being gathered on people even now that Smart Jitney's requirements are less radical than they might at first appear.

G. Dispatching Rules

Smart Jitney will require large start-up costs, including vast amounts of human capital. Dispatchers, particularly in the early days, will make or break the system. Dispatchers will need to be responsible for:

G1. Monitoring Equipment - monitoring automobiles and trucks.

G2. Monitoring People - monitoring for troublemakers and criminals.

G3. Responding - responding to drivers and riders.

G4. Dispatching - dispatching vehicles and drivers and clearing status of vehicles and drivers upon trip completion.

G5. Contacting - contacting police/highway patrol/towing as necessary.

G6. Rescheduling - rescheduling riders because of problems or sudden destination changes.

Dispatchers would bear the brunt of making the system work in the early stages but could eventually become a supplement to properly functioning technology. With real-time operating experience to draw from and a fluid design, most functions could eventually become automated. Dispatchers would become troubleshooters instead of the active schedulers.

H. Fleet Rules

Having the populace at large sharing private vehicles will require standards of care and maintenance, including:

H1. Checkups every few thousand miles.

H2. Certification for use within the ride-sharing system.

H3. Maintenance Records kept in stringent detail.

H4. Logging of accidents and damage.

Stringent rules would be set for all CCVs. Most important would be periodic safety inspections, which would become more extensive and frequent if the vehicle is in an accident. Vehicles with expired certification or failed safety tests would be reported and removed from the system.

I. Reporting Rules

A traffic system as complex as Smart Jitney must be able to quickly adapt, which requires information from all parts of the commuting community. Reporting and analysis would allow the system to respond to regionalized travel phenomena, such as rush hours or weather disruptions, and to generalized transportation trends, such as summer vacations. Reports compiled from the databases could include: personal travel, driver travel, vehicle travel, average waiting time, average gas mileage, and many others.

The system would automatically maintain and update the extensive records to help optimize travel efficiency and maintain a high quality of driver and rider satisfaction.

Expected Results
Smart Jitney will change the ways people socialize as individuals and groups. The nation’s dependence on fossil fuels has stifled the citizen’s innate ability for cooperation. The result is a walling off, a distancing of one person from another that mirrors people’s increasing geographic isolation. This pattern can be broken by re-socializing people to interact with others and by making relationships more important than possessions.

The things Americans say they want – more time with family, shorter work weeks and commutes, better quality and more carefully prepared food – used to be in greater abundance. They're still available. Creative ways must be found, perhaps ways from the past, to get them into people’s daily lives.

The transportation system of one car-one driver is going to change radically. Other systems and social institutions will be forced to change at the same time. The social landscape will change into something different, hopefully a better way.

Smart Jitney has tangible savings, such as money, time, and safety. And these savings, brought about by conservation measures, will result in great changes in how people work, live, and play.

Beneficial Changes in Transportation
The far-reaching effects of minimizing car transportation are many:

Accidents - Car accidents are the leading cause of death for many age groups. Almost 50,000 people a year die, and more than 1 million are injured annually in the United States alone. World traffic deaths are approximately 500,000 yearly. Fewer traffic fatalities and injuries, along with fewer deaths from automobile-based air pollution, would save us tens of billions of dollars. There are cities in the world where infants and the elderly die from smog, mostly produced by vehicle emissions. The human savings in pain and suffering would be enormous.

Reduced Crime Rates - A dramatic drop in crime rates would result from the de facto monitoring of vehicles necessary for the Smart Jitney program. As discussed earlier, Smart Jitney limits escape routes after a crime has been committed, and citizens' cell phones would allow immediate calls for emergency assistance. Additionally, fewer fender-benders mean more police officers concentrating on crimes instead of traffic accidents.

Gasoline Savings - As families use cars less, they will see a reduction in their gasoline, auto repair, and auto purchase budgets. The reduction in family transport spending can be reinvested to enhance local vacations. The current style of vacation – a plane flight to a far away place such as Hawaii or Disneyland – will be too resource intensive to continue. But Americans, like all people, are adaptable. They can easily build local amusement parks and recreation facilities. A county fair can be as exciting as Disneyland for some of us, and a vacation week in the mountains or at a lake is fully satisfying for many rather than a trip across the continent or to a foreign country.

Other Savings - Further savings would be realized when people no longer require an entire car for themselves. Innovation can produce new designs for many one-person vehicles: bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, powered skateboards, powered wheelchairs, and golf carts.

The facilities previously used to manufacture cars could produce such devices in mass very quickly. This sort of quick adaptation of America's physical plant occurred during wartime and could happen again with the proper impetus.

Changes in Play and Recreation - The human is a playing animal. Without recreation, productivity and satisfaction decrease. How much oil is now used to alleviate boredom, to satisfy people’s need to be with others?

With reduced availability of fossil fuels, the way people play will be different, with more focus on the quality of the interaction rather than in distances traveled or options taken. The personal interaction now lost in car travel would be reversed. Community life would blossom in public spaces. Restaurants would relocate to neighborhoods and distant malls would be a thing of the past as neighborhood trade increases. Massive amusement parks would give way to local ones. Hotels and motels would be less necessary, less expensive, and more amenable to lengthy stays. Once people have invested the time and money to travel to another town, they would be more likely to stay longer.

Recreation plays an important role in a healthy community. Americans will certainly create new ways – or re-create old ones – to play and to entertain themselves at home.

Changes in Social Interaction - Depleted fossil fuels will force people to change, throwing them together, physically together – providing them opportunities for community building.

Social interaction will change as people try to maintain their American standards of privacy and personal distance despite the increased proximity resulting from the Smart Jitney system. Like the Japanese, American will gain the ability to keep their own sense of privacy in crowded places without the need for physical distance. In particular, the nation will see a greater sense of personal reserve as interaction increases. This reserve, this formality, is already present in the world's more physically crowded cultures, where people lead compartmentalized lives despite close physical proximity.

Americans will adopt a "lower profile" of less individualistic manners of dress and speech when interacting. Personal noise and scent pollution might become misdemeanors. Outdoor radios without headphones will be banned, along with other offensive and noisy media in public spaces. Visual or aural assault by commercial advertising will be reduced or eliminated. Obnoxious or overly loud speech, especially into a cell phone, will be discouraged. A code of conversational ethics and silence-keeping that will make modern life far more tolerable will be developed.

Changes in Work - What will jobs be like with less access to private cars? At first glance, not owning a car may appear to be less convenient, but maybe the reduction in commute time will make up for this. Less traffic congestion and no rush hour might be well worth it for many people.

Some people will lose jobs, particularly those who depend on driving. Jobs will also be eliminated in the military and in auto insurance and other auto-related industries, although the oil companies, possibly reduced in size, will be around for a long time packaging and selling energy. Making bikes and scooters for the American population could keep factories in work for years.

With fewer, more efficient vehicles, gas stations will begin to provide services such as charging batteries. Autos will still need repair, and mechanics will be needed for small engine repair and the maintenance of mechanized transportation devices and bicycles. But much skilled labor will move to retrofitting, repairing, and remodeling buildings for the optimum use of renewable resources. Companies which manufacture and install alternative means of heating and cooling will proliferate, as will manufacturers of bikes, buggies, and other simple transportation devices. The number of agricultural workers will increase because of the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels for fertilizer and machinery. The large retail chains dominating America today will break apart, resulting in smaller, locally-based suppliers. Specialty items will still be available via US mail and the Internet.

Businesses that provide a new American technological infrastructure will flourish. Communication companies that manage transportation will arise. Good communication will be vital. America must gain the ability to project people and interaction and speech over distances without having to spend resources relocating the physical body. Reliable networking systems, video phones, phone bridges, and integrated instantaneous document and photo transmission are needed.

Medical care costs will shrink because of fewer auto accidents and because people will become healthier from a more active lifestyle and organically grown food. Yet with medical care made available to everyone, the number of health care workers will not diminish. With the decrease in the conflict caused by trying to control oil-producing countries, resources of time and money will be channeled into new jobs in energy, health, and other research.

Conclusion
The idea of Smart Jitney may seem farfetched, but all the basic elements of the system already exist. The European model of standardizing the work day for carpooling purposes is effective and will be implemented. To make the system work, managers pay penalties if they make employees stay late, something that, at least for now, is unthinkable in America. But this and other measures will be implemented for greater satisfaction in the work force.

Without access to oil, the country will change – hopefully for the better. Self-reliance and a cheerful willingness to face a challenging future will result in the Smart Jitney, or something very much like it.

Sample Questions and Answers
1. Who can be a Driver? Any person can apply to a local government agency, typically the Department of Motor Vehicles. A good driving record is important.

2. How can I report offenses of drivers and other passengers? Each person entering the vehicle will have a nickname applied as they enter by the driver. The time of day and passenger nickname allow the offence to be assigned to a particular person. Simply call a special number, give the time of day and the nickname and report the offense.

3. How can I ride in silence? Any passenger may decide not to hear commercial radio or cell phone conversations. Every passenger and the driver must agree for commercial radio. The technique for avoiding embarrassment involves requiring the driver to shut off the radio as each new passenger is picked up. Upon entry he or she is asked if radio is acceptable to them. If they reply no, then the radio is not turned on again. Of course, negotiation is permitted.

4. What about very large people? People who are large or heavy will be identified in the system. Registration will include such information. Should the information be initially false, the drivers will comment on the specifics and records changed.

5. What about enemies – people with whom I cannot be in the same space? Each person can retain an enemy list. The system will insure that ride matching does not occur. However, if a person seems to have a tendency towards a large number of enemies, they may have to vacate and find another ride. Algorithms for this will be easy to develop.

6. Can I have a preference list? This would be the opposite of the enemy list. The system would allow grouping of preferred co passengers in this way. This could lead to a quasi permanent car pool in some circumstance.

7. Will smoking and drinking be allowed? Imbibing questionable substances implies a possibility of offensive behavior. Since most commutes are short, it is expected that doing without will not cause severe harm.

8. What about long distance travel? Would you have to keep picking people up? Long distance travel can be accommodated by the system. Pickup and drop offs would be less frequent and there would not be drop off at a home but along the central traffic route. The person would then move from drop off point to home or business using the local system.

There are hundreds of questions and answers to be developed as the system moves toward implementation. These are just a sample.

Financing and Implementation
A completely developed Smart Jitney System will take some years and some millions of dollars. Like most such projects, the time for design and specification is relatively long but not relatively expensive. The Community Solution will focus on this stage of the project.

It will address the specific design issues as discussed in the preceding sections in order to define a rough specification from which pilot projects can be developed. A similar specification must be developed for legal implications and include a summary of the changes in laws that must be made to achieve full scale implementation.

Additional work must be done to obtain support from communications companies, road building and maintenance and automobile manufacturers. It is important that such organization support the effort or, if not able to do so, at least give considerations to the national rather than parochial issues.

The concept involves radical change. The changes are being forced on us by circumstances such as Peak Oil and the Climate Crisis. Nonetheless, it is important that people see this as something that may be beneficial to them in the near and far future. This is a major marketing challenge, but not an impossible one. A little known fact is that most parent’s greatest fear for their children is not teen pregnancy or drugs but that the children will be killed or hurt in an auto accident.

The Smart Jitney specification has been placed in the public domain. However, funding is necessary to develop the concept for the product as well as the concepts for legal changes and culture changes.

The developer of the concept has a high tech background in energy, scientific computer applications and software development, insuring good practical design.

Source the Community Solution