MoCaS: Mobile carpooling system

Abstract

Carpooling is a car sharing practice first adopted in the United States of America during the fuel crisis in the 1970s. Since then, and after some ups and downs, this practice has been growing in recent years, being currently used throughout the world. With the evolution of mobile technologies, carpooling had the opportunity to expand, especially through mobile applications and web pages. With these technologies, it is possible for anyone in any part of the globe to search for others that wish to go to the same place and want to share their car. With this practice, people intend to save money, help preserve the environment, reduce congestions in cities, increase the number of places available to park and meet new people. This paper introduces MoCaS – Mobile Carpooling System –, a carpool service offered for registered users. In this system, each user can enter his travels and make appointments, assign ratings, register vehicles and add travel preferences. All this is possible via a web interface and also via a mobile application that together give greater support to those seeking such services. MoCaS distinguishes itself from other systems by offering innovative services, namely in the mobile component, that through location services allows for the booking of trips in real-time; in other words, not only trips that have not started, but trips that are already underway and that end up intersecting the user's position. Besides this novelty, this system provides a real-time map, where all trip stops are visible, as well as the location of carpoolers who are currently traveling. Both the web and the mobile applications were successfully developed, achieving good results in the performed tests, and are currently being prepared for deployment.