User Experience of Dynamic Carpooling: How to Encourage Drivers and Passengers?

Abstract

In the “Internet world”, the car is rapidly becoming one of the most connected elements in our everyday’s life. Our research topic deals more specifically with drivers who connect their smartphones to carpool with strangers. In fact, smartphones communicate crucial data for eco-mobility, such as the number of “empty seats travelling” [1], available for potential passengers. Thanks to the GPS, 3/4G networks and “dynamic carpooling” applications, the car stands out as the new “public-private” transport. This innovative service of dynamic carpooling develops in a lightning way. In this article, we decided to present a state of the art, which details successively the history of the practice, the technical components of the service, the issues and needs for a sufficient critical mass of users, the benefits and limits of the system. Then, we describe various examples of incentives, updated during the deployment of large-scale studies to encourage the practice to a larger number of users.