I saw this photo on a travel blog I read occasionally. This is probably the most amount of people I’ve ever seen traveling on or in a single vehicle (and I’ve seen whole families on mopeds in Vietnam):
It’s an amazing image, but this rideshare was probably undertaken due to some very extreme conditions. Judging by the amount of possessions on board, these poor folks are clearly not commuting.
- Jonathan
We’re probably all well aware by now that air travel generates a massive amount of CO2, more than any other form of transportation.
One transatlantic flight for a family of four creates more CO2 than that family generates domestically in an entire year. (Source)
As PickupPal is still quite new (launched Jan 15th, 2008), we have yet to convince the world’s airlines to sign-up to our service and help fill their empty seats. That is work in progress. 
In the meantime, we’re building Eco-Rideshare landing pages to enable airline passengers to rideshare to the airport and reduce the amount of CO2 generated on the highways.
Here are the new landing pages for some of the major US airports:
More to come…
- Jonathan
Well it has been really hard to keep this under my hat for so long but I can now announce that we have formally partnered with Reverb and The Dave Matthews Band.
From the Dave Matthews Band Website:
“DMB and Reverb are further expanding the greening efforts for the summer tour with a special partnership they have created with PickupPal. The Eco-Rideshare program is the first of its kind in the music tour industry and will help drivers and riders carpool to shows, thus helping concertgoers reduce their carbon footprint. PickupPal has generously agreed to waive their driver commission for DMB fans traveling to shows this summer. To learn more about the program, register with PickupPal (free) and enter shows that you may be driving to or need a ride to, please click here. DMB concertgoers who participate will also be eligible to win some cool prizes provided by Dave Matthews Band.” (Source).
We have been working closely with Reverb for several months now and we are so excited about this partnership. The Dave Matthews Band have been true pioneers in the field of raising awareness and walking the eco-walk by going the extra mile to make their tours as eco-friendly as possible. We look forward to participating at the various eco-villages that travel with the tour and I hope to see some of you there.
Cheers - Eric
I received an email today to sign a petition to put the polar bear on the US federal endangered species list. I signed it and I read on…the petition is sponsored by the We campaign (founded by Al Gore). The idea behind We is just that… “we” can make a difference. People are a force for change. We got us here, we can get us out. Yes, sign petitions for things you care about and yes, vote with your conscience. But the undercurrent of change is making personal choices to do things differently, and not necessarily a lot differently, sometimes just a little. “We” are the drops that fill the bucket.
-Suesan
It is really awesome the way in which festival and concert organizers have come on board with our PickupPal Eco-Rideshare program. Getting fans to festivals by using PickupPal is one of the best ways they can reduce their carbon footprint. Two new ones that launched today come from the UK and they are our first major festivals in the UK. NASS 2008 (www.nassfest.com) and Rip Curl Boardmasters 2008 (www.ripcurlboardmasters.com) - Skateboarding, BMX, Inline Skating, Motocross, Surfing, Hard driving bands - lots and lots of energy. Just listening to the intro music on their websites makes it very hard not to let the mind wander.
Also stayed tuned - this week we are launching our biggest partner tour and I cannot wait to spread the good word!
Cheers - Eric
Facebook plan to announce a new extension to their API called Facebook Connect. With it users can use their Facebook data on other sites, your Facebook profile and friends are no longer restricted to facebook.com. This is great news for PickupPal, because it will allow Facebook users to use PickupPal with their existing, trusted network of friends. Making for a safer, more familiar experience for new users.
It appears from the Techcrunch article that Facebook are doing this in response to a similar MySpace feature: MySpace Data Availability, but in general this is a very smart move for any social network site; it is an extension of federated identity and trust models. Leveraging a users existing reputation within a known social network and extending that reputation into new networks.
Imagine signing-up as a new PickupPal user and sharing rides with people you already know!
- Jonathan
With recent media attention I thought I would compile a handy list of media mentions for PickupPal.
Television:
Blogs:
Newspapers:
Radio:
It is coming - just have to get the podcast setup.
Southern California…the car is king. Leading in number of cars but also in stringent vehicular emissions control, and in HOV lanes (High Occupancy meaning 2 here in Cali - not 3 like where i live). In December, Quebec decided to adopt the same emissions standards, the first territory outside of the US to do so. California is pushing the automakers, and it has some clout. No kidding!
There are a lot of cars in So Cal, Peter and I experienced our first Californian “gridlock” at the Enterprise counter at LAX: a 45 minute human traffic jam. When you see a 20+ seating area with a movie playing on the large hanging TV above the seats and 4 machine snack dispensers - that’s a pretty good sign that this place is busy! The man serving us assured us that this was the busiest Enterprise in the world. I would argue that LAX car rental agencies are the busiest in the world, that they rent more cars than anywhere and by a long shot. In Southern California you can’t get anywhere without a car - those bike lanes and wide sidewalks be damned.
At the Amusement Park we visited, the parking lots were impressive, and extensive. If you have a Volvo, you get to park in a preferred lot - nice joint advertising! It is the off season, and a Monday, so we aren’t greeted with a sea of cars driving in, and parking is a breeze. I can only imagine what it is like on a long weekend. One funny thing, the overflow parking was full..not with Park visitors whose cars did not pass muster but with brand new SUV’s - looks like a local car dealership rents space from the Park to store their cars…based on what is happening with gas prices, those SUV’s may be there a long time ( ref. Eric’s post).
If casual ridesharing is going to work, it has to work here. There are more people, more cars, more traffic and congestion, more air pollution, less public transportation than anywhere. There is a lot of carpooling but it has reached a peak, and the HOV lanes are still underused. Nobody stands to benefit more from a working casual ridesharing system than Californians. And we need it to work for Californians, cause if it works here, other places will follow.
-Suesan
Triathlon season is upon us in North America! Some of you may be brand new to the sport, and some may be crafty veterans, who’ve trained diligently all through the off season. I don’t fit into either category unfortunately…while I’ve done several, I have yet to get into the groove of extended preparation…for me, it’s usually defined in days, not months!
The first race in the Trisport Subaru series season is coming up on Victoria Day weekend in less than 2 weeks, and the intense training regimen that I started *yesterday* is in full swing - YIKES! My chicken legs will be buckling about 15 minutes in to the race. A personal race favorite is the Orillia course, where we’ve even had our kids (both < 7 years old at the time) enter in the Kids of Steel competition, so Triathlon can be a great family outing as well.
The Trisport Subaru series is the original Triathlon series in Ontario, well-organized and very professionally run, with 9 events throughout the region. This year, the same organizers have also launched a 70.3 race in Muskoka (In 2005, WTC instituted the Ironman 70.3 race series. This shorter course, previously known as a half ironman, consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run).
I’m thrilled to say that we’ve teamed up together with the folks at Trisport! They are very interested in providing additional value to their racers. So…if you are interested in ridesharing to any of these Tri’s, while making new friends and reducing your emissions, log in here and sign up:
events.pickuppal.com/races/Trisport
events.pickuppal.com/muskoka-ironman
Soon we’ll post a listing of Eco-Rideshare Partners (ERP as we like to call the program) such as Trisport on our website, so that it will be very easy for our PickupPal community to find concerts, festivals and sports events in their area to rideshare to and from.
See you on the course…I’ll be the one with the legs that resemble those you usually see hanging out of a nest!
Brent - PickupPal Business Development
It happens every second Tuesday - I take our minivan and drive my kids to Gymnastics and since I don’t normally drive the minivan when I get into it I find that it is running on fumes, [not passing judgment - just stating the facts ]. So I go and I fill it up and today I was floored by the price - $107.45 - regular Sunoco 87 gas! And as I drive away it dawns on me that at a minimum it is going to cost $2,800 a year for me to put fuel into a vehicle I don’t even enjoy driving.
There was a great article today on how the price of gas is changing the way people live. The article talks about how commuters are giving up on the extras just so they can buy gas to get to work. Transportation to many is not a luxury but a necessity and you need to get to work to make money to buy gas - something just is not right!
One final note/anecdote - my wife is going on a business trip and needs to rent a vehicle - the cheapest available vehicle is a SUV - now that is definitely a sign that “The times they are a changing”!
Cheers - Eric