posted on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 7:46 AM
by
Jeremy RVARC
Checking In from Atlanta
I'm winding up the last hours of the annual
Association for Commuter Transportation International Conference in Atlanta. The sessions have been fascinating, but two stick out in particular: One on "telling your story," and another on initatives being undertaken by other countries.
The "telling your story" session was essentially two hours of basic marketing information, but presented in a refreshing way. It got me thinking about what, exactly, is the RIDE Solutions story; or, another way to put it, what are the stories of the commuters in our region, how are their stories (and thus their problems) unique, and how can RIDE Solutions best offer a happy ending? I don't have the answers yet, but it is something I'll be thinking about a lot on the flight home.
Of perhaps more interest was a presentation by Paul Minett of
Trip Convergence Ltd. regarding casual carpooling (what he calls flexible carpooling), or
slugging:
Slugging, also known as casual carpooling, is the practice of forming ad-hoc, informal carpools for purposes of commuting, essentially a variation of ride-share commuting and hitchhiking. While the practice is most common and most publicized in the congested Washington, D.C. area (where it is primarily used by commuters who live in Northern Virginia), slugging is also used in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and other U.S. cities
I find the process fascinating, since the whole machinery of the RIDE Solutions program is based on the assumption that carpooling only happens once participants are comfortable with each other, and here is a phenomenon of complete strangers getting together for the sole purpose, largely, of avoiding tolls. When I spend so much time trying to help organize carpools from a top-down approach, here is a system that has not only maintained but expanded, all completely self-organized. I will begin working with Paul, I hope, to examine the possibility of establishing or encouraging this in the NewVa area, particularly between the Salem Park and Ride and Virginia Tech, to offer yet another option to commuters in the region.