Push Button Paradise

I enjoyed your May 5 column "Jet Me to Work" about new software for travel routing logistics. I happen to be reading Christopher Alexander A Pattern Language, and found something strikingly similar (remembering this was published in 1977):

Pattern 20 = Mini-Busses (p 110)

Recent research, and full-scale experiments, have shown that a system of mini-busses, on call by telephone, can function in this fashion, taking people from door to door in 15 minutes, for no more than 50 cents a ride (1974): and that the system is efficient enough to support itself. It works just like a taxi, except that it picks up and drops off other passengers while you are riding; it goes to the nearest corner to save time--not to your own front door; and it costs a quarter of an average taxi fare.

The system hinges, to a certain extent, on the development of sophisticated new computer programs. As calls come in, the computer examines the present movements of all the various mini-buses, each with its particular load of passengers, and decides which bus can best afford to pick up the new passenger, with the least detour.

Summary Report--The Dial-a-Ride Transportation System, M.I.T. Urban Systems Laboratory, Report # USL-TR-70-10, March 1971

Interesting, no? -m

posted at: 23:21 | under: 2005-05 | 0 comment(s)