PickupPal Blog

PickupPal is the ridesharing partner of the London Symphony Orchestra. Yes, we are!

Many people think that ridesharing is something that other people are doing: those rock’n roll-ers, virgin festival going groupies, hippies and tree huggers - the fact is that everyone can be interested in ridesharing, really everyone.

There is no demographic hierarchy that applies here. All kinds of people all going all sorts of places, and they are all thinking about how to get there in a way that has the smallest impact on our planet and that does not cost them a lot of hard-earned money. We all care about these things, well most of us do. From Sydney to San Francisco, skaters to triathletes, commuters to farmers, rock ‘n rollers to Beethoven enthusiasts..there is a compelling reason to rideshare, to come together, right now. And I know Eric blogged recently that you can’t be be everything to everyone and I agree with that. But I think we can be something to a whole lot of people and that PickupPal can helps us all get there from here.

-Suesan (Community Relations)

Dear PickupPal Members,

Effective immediately, PickupPal will no longer charge drivers a 7% commission:

No fees, no accounting, nothing but 100% FREE enjoyment of PickupPal!

This also means that any and all commission amounts payable by drivers to PickupPal are canceled and no longer owing, period.

We are scrapping the 7% commission, effective immediately, because of the enormous environmental and user experience benefits that will result.

We have had such tremendous growth and are proud to be the largest internet ride sharing company in the world. We feel that by removing this commission PickupPal will be able to grow even faster and become one of the world’s leading green-house gas emissions reducers.

On behalf of everyone at PickupPal we thank you our valued members for your continued support.

So please, continue to have fun on PickupPal.com – and from now on, you keep the change!

Sincerely,

John Stewart
Founder – CEO

I love maps, I love trying to find places i have lived or visited just by scrolling around Google Earth seeing if i can remember my way around… I look for places i have stayed on holiday like the little B&B whose name I’ve long ago forgotten but I remember that road up from the little beach on Ios, how the road veered left and it was at the top of the hill - following the road on a map and looking at the street names brings back great memories. Also, I love to travel, and in some ways looking at a map temporarily satisfies that hunger in me.

So imagine how thrilling it is for me to spend part of my day looking at points on a map, looking up our members’ routes and matches; helping them enter a pickup request or a driver route.

This brings me to the trusty PickupPal Globe icon. I want all our members to know and love the Globe icon because well, there’s a lot to love in PickupPal’s little Globe! What? This: when you are entering your start and stop addresses you can click on it and the glorious interactive Google map appears! It is awesome, you can see your start point or your end point, you zoom out and you see both points on the same map. You scroll a little to the right: you see where you went to High School - You scroll a little to the left: there’s that great beach!

So my PickupPal friends, you need to click on the PuP Globe! To see where you are and where you want to go, and if you have a minute, spend some time moving around the map, it is a really great way to reconnect to the places you live, work and play…. And all the while you make sure the route you are entering is not taking you from Portland, Oregon to Sydney, Australia!! Two Waldos - one little globe shaped stone.

- Suesan

PickupPal and the Clean Air Foundation are very excited about the government of Canada’s recent commitment to make a difference in getting old cars off the road and recycled properly. Vehicles built before 1995 produce about 19 times more air pollutants than 2004 and newer modeled cars. In fact, one-third of the vehicles driven by Canadians are responsible for two-thirds of the smog created. Canadian Federal Environment Minister John Baird said today the government will give the Toronto-based Clean Air Foundation $92 million over four years to run a national vehicle “scrappage” program - (Details Here). As a Clean Air Foundation partner we want to send out our congratulation’s to the Car Heaven Program team for all of their hard work and we look forward to being part of the solution that helps to reduce harmful air pollutants.

PickupPal was on hand at the press conference this afternoon and we took some pictures - behind the scenes.

Notes: Federal Environment Minister - Hon. John Baird announcing the Canadian governments support of the Car Heaven project and the commitment of 92 million over four years to expand the program.



Notes: Photo Ops in front of the Car Crusher!



Notes: Ian Morton (Founder & Chief Executive Officer - Summerhill Group) and myself.

Notes: O.K. we are on the move people!

Notes: Talking to the guys at Sonshine Auto Parts - “Hey man where do you get those sweet hats with the flames on them?”



Notes: Adam Elliott, Myself, Suesan Danesh from PickupPal. [Notice how I was able to score a sweet hat! - yeah man flames and all!]

Everyday I get one or two emails that go something like this: “this guy is traveling in the opposite direction” or “this pickup requires a detour” or more often simply “this is not on my way”.

I answer these comments happily because I know that every single one of our members has a different expectation as to what PickupPal will do for them and certainly most are not quite sure how it all works. I change up my answers and use metaphors sometimes to explain and i thought to blog about it…if you will permit me

The matching engine creates a sort of bubble around the routes that drivers save into the system and this becomes a catchment area. Basically it is tantamount to a net that is cast. The pickup requests caught in that “net” are matched to the route - PickupPal reels in the net for the PickupPal drivers and dumps out the catch for them to take a look. Some “fish” are good, some are not the right ones and need to be thrown back into the sea. This is not meant to annoy anyone, but rather to meet all sorts of appetites. Some drivers have no taste for deviating from a set course, some others do. So under these circumstances, sometimes we catch a fish/pickup that is not right for Drivers.

One thing that members can do when they come upon a particularly unpalatable morsel is to check the “also, do not show this again” box on the drive opportunity page. Because we get it, not everyone likes squid - I do but that does not mean you need to. What makes it hard however is that a few people don’t really want to fish with a net at all…but would rather be fishing with a line in out the back of the boat.

We have mentioned in our one-on-one communications and within our forums that we are working on a new user interface (UI) for release this summer, it will include a feature whereby drivers can set matching preferences on their routes, in essence giving them the option of a smaller net perhaps even several sizes of nets. We think it will be like fishing in a barrel:)

- Suesan

Well in the immortal words of Otis Redding and covered ohh so well by the Black Crowes:

“Baby here I am
I’m the man on the scene
I can give you what you want
But you gotta come home with me”

[NOTE: It was on this tour when I first saw the Black Crowes - Awesome band live! I cannot wait to see them in July at Bluesfest]

The Ottawa Bluesfest has team up with PickupPal providing fans an excellent way to double up and cut down - all part of our Rock n Roll Rideshare initiative. As a loyal fan of the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest year after year this is quite the pleasure to team up with such a prestigious festival. If you are going to Bluesfest sign up to PickupPal from the Ottawa Bluesfest Site and bring someone with you or find a ride to the various shows.

This years line up is massive - here is a sampling:
James Taylor; Steely Dan; The Tragically Hip; Feist; Wyclef Jean; The Black Crowes; Fergie; Widespread Panic; Brian Wilson; Great Big Sea; Boz Scaggs; Three Days Grace; Primus; Zappa Plays Zappa; Taj Mahal; Donna Summer; Matthew Good and His Band; Don McLean; Keb’ Mo’; Theory of a Dead Man; Blind Boys of Alabama; Joan Armatrading; Jakob Dylan; Dr. John; Canned Heat; Corb Lund, Metric; The Wailers; Johnny Winter; Bettye LaVette; Sam Roberts Band; Martha Wainwright; Jose Gonzalez; The Hammerheads; Sonny Landreth; Back Door Slam; Brothers Chaffey; Theory of a Dead Man; Billy Joe Green, Mumbo Jumbo Voodoo Combo; Tokyo Police Club; Three Days Grace

And special note - our very own Brothers Chaffey are performing on Friday, July 11 at 6:00 pm on the Rogers Stage - you have to check them out! (If you have watched the PickupPal Video - you may have noticed a wicked little ditty - custom written for us by the Brothers Chaffey).

NOTE: This is not groundbreaking news however it is pretty funny.

I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that PickupPal will be providing Ridesharing services for Virgin Festival Canada 2008 by Virgin Mobile in Calgary but we are also going to have a booth at the Eco-Village on site. As soon as it was decided to have the booth John Stewart, (CEO and co-founder of PickupPal), recalled that he had a display booth at his Brother’s office in Kingston. The challenge was, when was John going to come down to Ottawa some 3 hours away and drop off the booth?

We talked about going down to pick it up or possibly having it shipped but that was going to be a big hassle. Then it dawned on John – Ummm don’t we run a company that has the mantra “a global eco-friendly transportation revolution that connects drivers, passengers, and PACKAGES with the places they need to go”? Well after we laughed for a while John posted the Pickup request and sure enough the call was answered within hours and the display booth arrived safe and sound in Ottawa – right to my doorstep - safe and sound.

So the moral of this story is even if you don’t remember to use PickupPal all the time, don’t feel bad, we forget sometimes as well. I think it is because we are so conditioned to do things the old way that we sometimes forget that we now have more options available to us right under our noses!

Cheers - Eric

Eric has blogged about this issue: trust/stranger/feeling safe…In my mind, there is no way to be 100% sure that someone you are interacting with, who you have not known for a certain amount of time, is a “safe” person (for lack of a better word). At work, at the grocery store, at the park, at Uni, driving in the other car on the highway, sitting next to you on the bus, at the movies or at the symphony for that matter, we are surrounded by people we do not know. We all decide individually what we feel comfortable doing and who we feel comfortable interacting with, sometimes even talking to. We make choices everyday based on a whole series of individually-set criteria to go in one direction or another, or to do one thing and not another.

Ridesharing is not for everyone. But I think it works for a lot of people whose criteria for making the choice to share a ride with someone are met within the PickupPal community model. There are a series of tools that PickupPal provides to meet a number of these criteria (not all, but some)…
Tools such as:

• member profiles with photo
• gender preference matching
• in-system messaging
• post-ride feedback/evaluation
• five-star rating
• drive/ride statistics tracking
• community support with like-minded people
• people going to the same event/concert/festival

So with these tools to satisfy some criteria, and other personal decision-making criteria, that members may have, being met by such things as telephone conversations and /or pre-drive meetings, a lot of people (Pickuppal members) are perfectly comfortable to accept or offer rides with others members going the same way.

It is a challenge to support people to trust others and feel safe with others. And we at PickupPal, would never presume (or even try) to convince a person to trust another solely by virtue of the online community that we have created. What PickupPal does is offer a box of useful tools for its members that may (or may not) help inform their decision regarding sharing a ride/drive, it does not decide for them.

We are challenged as a society and at PickupPal to understand the trust relationship. To understand what makes another person a “stranger” (and strange/not trustworthy) and what needs to happen for someone to go from such a “stranger” to a person who you just may not know, but is worthy of your trust. What is our default position as a society? These are very interesting questions and to understand them and address them is, as I said, certainly challenging but also inspiring… At least to me.

-Suesan

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 Times they are a-changing 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

When we were in the early planning stages of PickupPal we always had the idea of having member profiles and encouraging members to post their photo. Having your photo along with your profile is actually way more important than you think. I have some statistics to back this up - of the Drivers that get accepted offers, 94% post their photos. The number of Drivers within PickupPal that have photos is currently at 41% and the number of Passengers that have photos is at 36%. So I am not a math wizard but there is a high correlation between having your photo as a Driver and having your offer accepted. It stands to reason - if you are going to accept a ride from someone you want to know what they look like first.

So this brings me to another part of this post which is that when we first designed PickupPal we thought - “Ohh we better have some way of reviewing the photos to make sure there are no offensive ones” - so we built an administration tool to do just that. To be honest before we launched we thought this might be a big issue to deal with so we built and administration tool to review all the profile pictures that are posted. Well having done it for a few months now I can truthfully say that there are very very few questionable photos. The funny thing is that I love reviewing them and approving them but so too does Suesan - our fanatical Customer Support Lead and Community Builder Super Star here at PickupPal. So I log in early in the morning to review the ones that came in over night before she gets to them - she however does it throughout the day so she sees more of you than I do. In any event - each one of them I think are great! When you are helping to build a great community like PickupPal it is such a privilege to see who is joining - as if to say welcome. I know that probably sounds really crazy but I am serious it is great to see you as you join in.

So please post your profile picture - it greatly improves your chances of getting offers and having your offers accepted, also Suesan and I really like meeting you.

Cheers - Eric