This app is an effort to tackle one of the hardest problems we are experiencing every single day in Austin - the traffic.
The traffic headache in Austin is getting more severe over the years, due to the top-rated city growth and the lagged-behind road constructions. A used-to-be 20 minutes drive to work few years ago soon became 30, 40 mins and sometime it took even more than an hour.
City of Austin has tried to address this issue by encouraging people to use public transit, bike lanes, carpooling etc. Some workplaces also offer benefits for carpooling and bus riding. It does lessen the problem for some degrees but they’ve reached the limit for the reason of convenience and flexibility. The fixed schedule metro bus is hard to catch. If you miss one, you have to wait long time for the next one to come. In some routes, there is only one or two buses during the entire morning. Carpool and Vanpool are good options. The problem there is you have to manage pick everyone up in the morning. It’s also your obligation to wait for everyone finish work and show up on time before driving home. It’s not flexible.
Some rideshare apps like Uber, Lyft and other alternatives also try to market them as solutions. The problem is their business models make them much like Taxi services. It may serve well for the special events and for people without car, but it doesn’t help much for regular commuters during rush hours. Even worse they actually spike up the demand and draw more drivers onto the road and that means - more cars.
What are we missing here? The ultimate issue here is how to fully utilize each car’s seat capacity to maximum and reduce the total amount of cars on the road during commute hours as much as possible. It also need to be convenient so people don’t have to wait too long for the ride. It’s need to be flexible so there is no obligation if someone shows up late.
Here is where MeBus comes into place. It is a daily commuter road share mobile application which reuses the most time empty metro bus stations to their full potentials. It turns regular commute cars into streaming buses that can quickly pick up and drop off passengers with a flash of seconds. It’s the best way to move people around one car at a time. It will greatly reduce the total number of cars on the road so the traffic can restore its speed. It reduces the average drive days for each commuter, which means savings. Savings for car maintenance, gas and for the environment.
The traffic in Austin is a long time problem. It doesn’t seem it can be resolved any time sooner. The city is growing rapidly, and the public transit options are very limited. More and more people need to get to work and road is getting packed up quickly. Even though more roads and tolls are being built, but it just can never outgrow traffic. Simply put, the traffic problem is the next-generation problem, thus we need more smarter ideas, forward looking, next-generation solutions.
MeBus app is going to solve this next-generation problem along with all other great solutions. It utilizes the latest cloud and phone technologies. It’s a great example for gigabit high speed networking application as it matches the MeBus drivers and passengers on real-time demand. It processes the high number of request with changing locations. It manages the drivers vs passengers ratio so every passenger can get a ride.
I am a software developer for about 20 years. I have experience in many software related field including real-time firmware design, time sensitive algorithm design to large scale software solutions. I am also a full stack web and apps developer who loves exploring new technologies and ideas. I will be the sole developer for this project for now, though I am currently looking for another superhero to join in the team.
The app is for regular commuters who usually drive between work and home during rush hours every day. It will be available on any smart phones for easy download. With the success of roadshare apps like Uber and Lyft, people are used to the idea of getting ride with phone apps. It’s simple and easy to use, anyone knows how to use smart phones can operate it without problems.
Half of the prize money will be used to hire an extra developer to speed up the development cycle. Another half will be used to promote the apps, market it over multiple channels, and to reach more Austin commuters.
