Saving time, money and the environment - vHike a dynamic ride-sharing service for mobile devices

Abstract

In times of increasing traffic-related problems, such as air-pollution or traffic jams, ride-sharing is one of the most environmentally friendly and pleasantest ways to travel. The many benefits are offset by a multitude of prejudices and fears, including security concerns and a heavy scheduling and coordinating burden. For this reason this paper introduces vHike an easy-to-use management system for dynamic ride-sharing running on modern Smartphones. By the use of techniques well-known from Web 2.0 social networks the threats and social discomfort emanated by ride-sharing is mitigated. With vHike we want to show that a proper designed social dynamic ride-sharing system can be feasible and viable.