Computer Aided Carpooling?

Bill Phu asks: "I just had an idea for an interesting open source and/or freeware add-on (for a commercial package). While on the crappy bus ride to work this morning, I just realized that car-pooling would be a much better idea, but finding people to carpool with is a pain in the butt. But the chances of someone living near you increases if the organization (e.g. company or university) is larger. Wouldn't it be great if there was a tool to help you find people to carpool with?" Read on for the details on this idea and tell us what you think.

"My idea is to create a program (or a free web service?) that would help you find people to carpool with to/from work. Traditional bulletin boards are a pain. What would be better if there was a database of streets and people who want to carpool. People would (voluntarily) list themselves into the database, and if they have a car that they can carpool with or not. The program would sort out, geographically, a list of eveyrone else in the database that lives near other potential carpool users, or within a specified distance along the path to/from work.

E.g. If you are looking for a drive, you could list all potential drivers within, say, 1 km of where you live. People with cars can list people who need a drive within 1 km of where they live, or within 500 m of their path to work.

I know there are several packages available commercially that could do the hard calculations easily. They tend to be pricey GIS packages, although there are freeware ones out there e.g. GRASS; or cheap ones like Idrisi (although idrisi doesn't handle topology very well, I don't think..). What does not exist, at least not that I know of, is software to geo-encode addresses to geographic locations (e.g. so an address like 7071 Mumford Road could be translated into a reliable spot on a map). Also, I cannot think of a public streets database that is useable (I wonder if the HRM will license it free to students to work with?).

So would any of you guys know of a geo-encoding tool or any other software that can do this?"

Comments

I had an idea last night...

[OlympicSponsor]

...when I was eating a rabbit, raw. What if we hand some means of harnessing the power of fire? Then I could hold my meat over the flames until it had become "cooked" (a word I just now invented). Hopefully this will be tasty, not to mention more hygenic.

Seriously, dude, this idea is OLD OLD OLD. Like, 20 years-style old (at least). Here's a link that lists (among other things) some ride sharing databases. Plus, if you've ever been outside you've probably noticed the "Ride Share Info" roadside signs with a phone number to dial for the exact same information. Then there's the many, many companies that provide vans or cars and keep lists of the same thing, and the publications (local papers, etc) that ALSO do the same thing.
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