FEUPooling: Carpooling Platform

Abstract

Nowadays, automobiles are one of the most popular means of transportation and the majority are used by only one person. This leads to a lot of traffic in the urban areas, which causes, for example, an increase in atmospheric and sound pollution. Besides that, the price of fuel, tolls and parking has been gradually increasing. In many cases, public transportation is not an option because of the lack of comfort, freedom and flexibility of schedules. Therefore, the idea of carpooling emerged with the goal of minimizing these problems. Carpooling is the sharing of private vehicle journeys so that more than one person can travel in the same car.However, not everyone is receptive to this idea, and the main obstacles stated are the lack of security and trust in sharing a ride with strangers. Nevertheless, in the specific context of an organization like FEUP, the community of users is known and trusted, so this problem does not apply. On this community, several behaviors, routines, travels and schedules can be anticipated. This can help simplify several aspects of carpooling, making the adoption easier. In addition, this allows for an integration of the platform with the existing organizational information system of FEUP which in turn increases the security and trustability of the system.With this kind of ride sharing, money can be saved by splitting costs of fuel, parking and tolls by the passengers involved. Apart from that, it is a more ecological and sustainable way of commuting because it reduces the traffic density, consequently reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. Furthermore, the surrounding area of FEUP lacks free parking, so the introduction of such a service would be beneficial.The project proposed by the Comissariado para a Sustentabilidade da FEUP consisted on the development of mobile applications for the described community. This system, which is the core of the project, aimed to be as easy to use as possible in order to have the maximum possible adoption. The users - in this case, the students - are able to post ride sharing offers as drivers or search for these as passengers. Additionally, a points system was added. This system can be considered a simple gamification mechanism, in order to motivate and reward users who use the service. A back-end system then verifies if a trip was valid, by calculating the similarity of the passenger's routes before rewarding the trip's participants with points. These points can then be exchanged later by rewards to be defined by the faculty.Besides that, a web application for administrative purposes was also developed so that the system can be controlled and managed. The administrator(s) can view information about trips and users in order to ensure that there are no irregular behaviors. The platform also allows an administrator to exchange a user's points for rewards.Finally, in terms of results, at the beginning of the next school year the platform is expected to enter a wider testing phase, in the form of a prototype, by a small part of the FEUP student community. If all goes as expected, the product will then be ready to be tested by a larger number of users. The goal is for all interested students to be able to access this application in order to share their commute in an easy way without being concerned about security.