International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering (IJSCE)

ISSN: 2231-2307, Volume-5 Issue-2, May 2015

A Survey to Justify the Need for Carpooling

Abstract— In India people mostly prefer road transportation to Also by having more people using one vehicle, carpooling
move around places. The increasing number of vehicle on road reduces each person travel cost such as fuel cost, tolls, and the
lead to several issues as congestion, environmental degradation stress of driving. This paper describes the issues related to the
and energy problems. Research and development have been
progressively done in this field to reduce the environmental traffic infrastructure in section 2, in section 3 we discuss the
degradation and for the better utilization of fossil fuels. Different existing research and development, in section 4 proposed
approaches and techniques to solve these issues emerged which solutions. Finally in section 5 we conclude the paper.
address fields of emission reduction, increase efficiency of vehicle,
energy alternative, decrease the road density with care of safety II. TRAFFIC INFRASTRUCTURE
and comfort, etc. In this paper survey on these emerging drifts and
elaborate on one of the ways to reduce the vehicular density and Energy security and global climate change present
emission, we have identified carpooling as one such solution to particularly tough challenges for transportation, much less
provide user, flexibility in time, enjoyable, efficient and safe ride. progress has been made on reducing overall oil consumption
and GHG emissions from transportation. Annual highway
Index Terms— Drivers, Efficiency, GHG emission, HOV [high
fuel consumption, almost all from petroleum-based fuels,
occupancy vehicle], Passenger, Road density, Safety.
increased 59% between 1973 and 2007, from 110.5 to 176
I. INTRODUCTION billion gallons (Davis et al., 2009, Table 2.11). U.S. crude oil
and petroleum product imports have increased from 6 million
India is the second largest road network in the world. It has a
barrels per day in 1981 to 12.9 million barrels per day in
road network of over 4,689,842 kilometers (2,914,133 mi) in
2008.
2013. For every square kilometer of land there is 0.66
In [1] Tiwari, shows that in India only urban population is 285
kilometer of road. Thus the rapid increase in transportation
million and 100 million rural, this data is sufficient to indicate
makes it difficult to provide basic infrastructure for vehicular
the travelling patterns and needs. Although 20-65 % of total
population.
passengers prefer bus, who skeleton service provided by
The increasing need for mobility has brought about
municipality in most of cites is not well-intentioned to carry
significant changes in transportation infrastructure.
the load. 2006 onwards city and central governments both
Inefficiencies cause enormous losses of time, effect on
have paid attention in road infrastructure development to
environment due to increase in pollution, degradation of
solve transportation crisis. In Delhi, the total funds allocated
quality of life, and nonrenewable fossil energy depletion. The
for the transport sector in 2002–2003 have doubled in
scope of this paper is to introduce need of a mobile based
2006–2007. However, 80 per cent of the funds have been
solution to this problem which jointly manages the traffic
allocated for road-widening schemes benefiting primarily the
problems and the safety.
car and motorcycle users.
Carpooling is when two or more people sharing their car
In [2] shows the statics of Delhi, the total number of vehicle in
journey together from different households in order to save
delhi in 2009-10 it was 6.4 million, in 2010-11 its 6.9 million,
money and to protect the environment by burning less
in 2011-12 it was 7.4 million and in 2012 -13 it has become
Gasoline and enjoy each other’s company together. From the
7.7 million and this rate is increasing rapidly and shows the
computational point of view carpooling services uses a web
demand of proper transportation planning and development.
page as interface between different people, who becomes a
However in [3] Jonathan Norman1 et al, indicates three major
board and manage their displacements together.
elements of urban development transportation is one of them.
Carpooling is seen as a more environmentally friendly and
The result indicates that the most targeted measures to reduce
sustainable way to travel as sharing journeys reduces carbon
GHG (Greenhouse gas) emissions and reduce energy in an
emissions, on the road traffic congestions, and the parking
urban development context should be aimed at transportation
spaces desires makes authorities often encourage carpooling,
emissions.
especially during high pollution periods and high fuel prices.
III. EXISTING RESEARCH AND DEVOLOPMENT
As we have discussed above, about the problem of increasing
road density, the extensive emission of GHG and reduce
Manuscript Received on May 4, 2015. energy, there are many research have been progressively done
Sweta, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, B.M.S. in these fields.
College of Engineering, Bangalore, India.
Sushmitha Reddy I, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, In [4] Hirschman et al, suggests a speed profile for all
B.M.S. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India. vehicles within the network using traffic flow simulator
Maddipatla Mounika, Department of Computer Science and VISSIM and PHEM (passenger-car and heavy duty Emission
Engineering, B.M.S. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India.
Prinka Agrawal, Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
model) which calculates vehicles fuel consumption and
B.M.S. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India. emissions using speed trajectories as model input. However
Pallavi G. B, Asst. Prof., Department of Computer Science and the overall model performance was evaluated by comparing
Engineering, B.M.S. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India.

Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
117 & Sciences Publication Pvt. Ltd.
 A Survey to Justify the Need for Carpooling

the calculated and measured PHEM emission based on of day to day distribution of the traffic is derived from a
simulated speed profiles and the 'on-road' driving cycles. dynamic Markovian model, this model performs simulation
In [5] Vivek Tyagi and Raghuram Krishnapuram , extracted experiments. This simulation result demonstrates the response
spectral envelope features of the cumulative acoustic signals, of it at the bottleneck to a change in system. This model is
and model their class-conditional based probability used to analyze the impacts of alternative pricing policies and
distributions, conditioned on one of the three broad traffic preferential treatment of high occupancy vehicles.
density states namely- Jammed(0-10KpH), In [9] Jason Hill et al explain that the Negative environmental
Medium-Flow(10-40Kph) and Free- Flow(40Kph and above) consequences of fossil fuels and concerns about petroleum
traffic. Here, the proposed solution is based on data that been supplies have spurred the search for renewable transportation
collected from different traffic zones, the accuracy of data biofuels. Biofuel should provide a net energy gain, have
provided may not be up to the mark, it may get distorted while environmental benefits, be economically competitive, and be
transmission. producible in large quantities without reducing food supplies
In [6] Dimitrakopoulos et al, introduces a novel functionality to be a viable alternative. Based on life-cycle different
for providing knowledge to the vehicles, thus jointly biofuels are compared, ethanol from corn grain and biodiesel
managing traffic and safety. The proposed design to achieve from soybeans, result states that the biodiesel have advantage
the high functionality will compromise sensor network over ethanol because it has lower agricultural input and high
formed by the vehicles of certain vicinity that exchange traffic feedstock to fuel. Biodiesel provides sufficient environmental
related information and cognitive management functionality advantages but with high production cost. Other alternatives
in the overall transportation infrastructure. The goal of this to transportation biofuels such as synfuel hydrocarbons or
paper is to issue directives to the driver and the overall cellulosic ethanol, if produced from low-input biomass grown
transportation infrastructure valuable in context handling. on agriculturally marginal land or from waste biomass, could
Practically, providing an intelligent system and implementing provide much greater supplies and environmental benefits
on each and every existing vehicle is nearly impossible. than food-based biofuels.
In [7] Heinz Jansen and Cecile, with the EUCRAS model In [10] Olof Johansson and Lee Schipper, focus on oil crisis
policy options are simulated to reduce passenger transport that led studies on energy demands, and the oil import led to
emissions in Europe. Consumer surplus, congestion and tax design energy prices in order to reduce its usage and concern
revenues are the changes included in the EUCARS welfare towards environmental problems as emission of CO2. By
analysis. Simulations also address consumer myopia, i.e., the estimating separately total vehicle stock, mean fuel intensity
underestimation of fuel costs by car buyers. To correct the and mean annual driving distance, based on a new data set
assumed myopia the best policy mix is to reduce CO2 consisting of 12 OECD countries from 1973 to 1992 estimates
consisting of fuel taxes which are combined with a long run fuel demand. Price elasticity for a part of estimated
differentiated purchased taxes. Over 25% of CO2 emissions long run fuel arises from changes in mean fuel intensity, while
can be reduced with the above combination without reducing the long run income elasticity arises largely from changes in
contemporaneous well-being. Conventional emissions can be the number of cars. The effects of changed taxes on car
reduced by a equivalent best mix which includes an ownership and use are significant, but smaller than the change
emissions-based kilometer tax combined with a purchase fee in fuel tax.
bate. Without any noticeable welfare reduction the above
mixture allows a 60% reduction in toxic emissions. The IV. PROPOSED SOLUTION
overall superiority of these two mixes compared to alternative In spite of the research and development that been carried out
choice is higher when the evaluation includes a broad group in different fields there are drawbacks and assumptions that
of externalities, a premium and public funds and positive are been made to arrive at solution. So we propose an
feedbacks across emissions categories. For an overall initial alternative solution i.e carpooling. Research shows that there
strategy the local traffic management measures are important are reasons why carpooling will be a better choice.
zero-cost compliments.
In [8] Moshe Ben-Akiva and Andre de Palma, here develops A. Why carpooling
a dynamic model of peak period traffic congestion that In [11] Sisinnio Concas, Philip L.Winters, proposes a
considers a limited number of bottlenecks. This model uses an hypothesis in an activity-based framework that says the
elastic demand model to predict the temporal distribution of carpooling imposes a constraint on the way individuals
traffic volumes. Travelers can change to different mode or organize their activities , with resulting impacts on traffic
shift the trip forward or backward or divert to an alternative peak congestion and trip-chaining behavior. The hypothesis
route in response to change traffic condition and to avoid a was tested by estimating the joint probability density
long delay. For a case study the author has taken a simple functions (PDFs) of subsistence, maintenance, and
example of travelers jointly selecting the route and the discretionary trips made by carpool and single-occupancy
departure time and two parallel routes. The routes and modes vehicle (SOV) users. Results show that whereas SOV
can be chosen based on traveling cost and traveling time. maintenance and discretionary activities are linked to
Departure time can be chosen based on tradeoff between subsistence trips in a joint undertaking, carpool activities
scheduled delay (it’s a difference between desire arrival time suggest discontinuity in the formation of trip chains. A
and actual arrival time) and travel time. The delays of the comparison of the joint probability density functions of
bottlenecks are modeled with a deterministic queuing model subsistence and discretionary activities reveals that trips are
that determines waiting time as a function of the length of conducted either before or after the commute schedule; this
queue at the time of arrival at the bottleneck. The adjustment results in a temporal shift that reduces peak-period traffic

Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
118 & Sciences Publication Pvt. Ltd.
 International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering (IJSCE)
ISSN: 2231-2307, Volume-5 Issue-2, May 2015

congestion and emission pollution. Marked differences are finding the location of a mobile device using several different
found to exist between SOV and carpool trip-chaining positioning technologies. This paper describes how
behavior. Carpoolers are more likely to engage in a greater Positioning Systems can be utilized in order to support a
number of cold-start trip chains; this behavior uncovers a dynamic network of car and taxi pool services that will
potential negative impact on emission pollution. These maximize the exploitation of empty seats traveling with
findings suggest that a comprehensive approach to the tenable advantages.
evaluation of carpool programs must take into account the In [17] Kavita Sheoran et al, suggest that increasing number
benefits as well as any ensuing negative externalities of vehicle on road have caused several issues. And with the
In [12] Moshie Ben-Akiva and Terry J. Atherton, tells about help of intelligent transportation system (ITS) it can be solved
range of occupancy of private automobiles used for home and with ease. ITS can be applied with ride sharing which will
work locations. The range of private automobiles used for provides dynamic booking, travel and on-board navigation
work trips is 1.2 to 1.4 persons per car and the average system departure and facility that user could trace the
occupancy of car pools is about 2.5 persons per car. At most location. There are different ITS techniques are mentioned as
13 percent of vehicle carries 2 or more persons and 28 percent GPRS and Bluetooth, Vehicular Adhoc Network based
of auto commuters are sharing rides. This figure shows the system, RFID based system, etc. With help of statics and the
great deal of work trips, and then carried by public transports case study in small region he shows that is can make a huge
in most urban areas in US. The paper extends the reasons for difference in traffic congestion, parking deficiency, and co2
carpooling: these include savings in travelling expenses, emission situations.
limited parking space, and poor transit service for individual In [18] Tejas Talele et al, introduce the problems related to
who cannot drive. An attention has been paid on potentials of traffic, and then brief of other similar project as
increasing carpooling for reducing fuel consumption and carpooling.com, waze.com, etc and their limitations. And
traffic congestion and improving air quality. This paper introduces an adhoc ridesharing which tackles the traffic
presents a methodology for short range transport which is issues and provide an additional in-built social media
based on the application of disaggregated travel demand platform. With 800 million active users on facebook online
models. social media can have an advantage. And explains that
The authors [13][14] threw up some interesting fact about interaction for the ride sharing can be easy, use can invite any
why carpooling. Without carpooling, the amount required for one for ridr sharing and view its profile and after the ride can
968,316 kiloliter petrol for 1.3 mn cars is Rupees 4,213 crore give feedback so people can refer it before ride etc. The
per annum. By carpooling, this amount reduces to Rupees system implement without compromising user functionality
2902 crore. Thus, revenue of Rupees 1310.98 crore can be and ease of use.
saved by saving 301,307 kiloliter petrol by carpooling. This In [19] Swati.R et al, states the reasons of not proper
case study was applied on traffic of Delhi. participation is unavailability or portability. And suggest
Considering the fact that the study was done way back in android mobile application as solution, which contains rating,
2007, the numbers must have obviously spiraled up. So go on comment on user and user information, and explains that
make a carpool to ride to work. through an android application can be more hande. Explain
the architecture and the design of the system. Through an
B. Technical Resolutions interactive graphical representation it shows its effect on
Subsequently, several technical solution also provided to congestion, cost reduction, fuel reduction, usability, etc.
improve carpooling services.
In [15] Burmeister, B. et al, in this author uses a new approach C. Carpooling why not embraced reason
called Agent-Oriented techniques which supports the whole In spite of these comparison measures and technical
software development process. All the phases in the software improvements suggested carpooling is still not a widely
development process are treated with a single uniform adopted service.
concept, and the system modeled by a collection of agents In [20] Gonçalo Correia and José Manuel Viegas, Supports
which is called a multi agent system. And these Agent carpooling and gives two reasons for the limitation of its
Oriented techniques can be used as advance in information success: the psychological barriers associated with riding with
technology can help to respond to the growing interest in strangers and poor schedule flexibility. They suggest a
traffic and transport more efficient, ecological, and resource solution to group the riders for traditional groups based on a
saving. The Author gives a huge range of applications where trust level for the compatible match and at the same time
multi agent system can create a great impact in this domain. allowing searching for a ride in an alternative group when
In [16] Lalos, P et al, Carpooling is the concept of people pool member has a trip schedule different from usual. On a
sharing a vehicle for a ride when their departure and web survey they found through a binary logit Discrete Choice
destination locations are similar. Dynamic car pool is the Model calibration that saving money is still an important
dynamic coordination of ride offerings and ride requests reason for participating in carpooling.
based on the, in real time created, transportation and offering In [21] J. D. Hunt et al, performed an experiment to examine
needs. Taxi pool is a mode of transport that falls between the various influences on the decision to carpool to work. 678
private transport and conventional bus transport. The routes interviews were totally conducted, for each interview five
are fixed or semi-fixed, but with the added convenience of successive pairs of automobile was presented to the each
stopping anywhere to pick or drop passengers and not having respondent and asked to indicate which alternative was
fixed time schedules. Positioning Systems are systems for preferred in each case. The respondents were forced to trade

Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
119 & Sciences Publication Pvt. Ltd.
 A Survey to Justify the Need for Carpooling

off among condition regarding specific attributes. Several [10] Olof Johansson and Lee Schipper “Measuring the Long-Run Fuel
Demand of Cars: Separate Estimations of Vehicle Stock, Mean Fuel
socio economic characteristics of respondent and attributes of Intensity, and Mean Annual Driving Distance.” in Journal of
the respondent’s actual trip to work were also recorded, and Transport Economics and Policy.
the contents of the hypothetical alternative presented were [11] Sisinnio Concas, Philip L.Winters, “ Impact of Carpooling on
adjusted accordingly .To estimate the parameter value from Trip-Chaining Behavior and Emission Reductions”, published in
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation
the observation for different utility functions in logit models Research Board, December 26, 2007.
representing this choice of behavior. The results indicate that [12] Moshie Ben-Akiva and Terry J. Atherton “Methodology for Short
the extra time spent in the automobile serving other carpool –Range Travel Demand Prediction. An Analysis for carpooling
Incentive”
participant is valid at the premium rate of about 4 dollar per [13] Shrishti Garg “Carpools: Driving into greener pastures Carpooling not
hour more than the automobile ride time for the direct trip. only helps save fuel but also contributes to the environment”, in The
The availability of the guaranteed ride to home has a value Business Standard, June 3, 2014.
[14] Kum Kum Dewan and Israr Ahmad “Carpooling: A Step To Reduce
roughly equivalent to basic transit fare in Calgary. Each Congestion (A Case Study of Delhi)” , in The times of India, 2014.
additional household member in the carpool adds for the [15] Burmeister, B. ; Daimler-Benz Res. Syst. Technol., Berlin, Germany
benefit in a reasonable linear manner, but does not alter the ; Haddadi, A. ; Matylis, G. “Application of multi-agent systems in
traffic and transportation” in Software Engineering. IEE Proceedings,
effect of parking cost of the respondent.
06 August 2002.
As in the Article [22] presents the view of different [16] Lalos, P. Dept. of Electron., Computer., Telecomm., Univ. of Athens,
commuters that why not carpool, and the main concern that Athens, Greece ; Korres, A. ; Datsikas, C.K. ; “ A Framework for
most people have is safety. Dynamic Car and Taxi Pools with the Use of Positioning Systems” in
Future Computing, Service Computation, Cognitive, Adaptive,
Finally based on these studies we can conclude the parameters Content, Patterns, 2009. COMPUTATION WORLD '09.
that are hindering adoption are safety, flexibility in [17] Kavita Sheoran (Guide) Assistant Professor / Reader, Vaibhav Jatana,
availability time, trip-delay, and level of comfort. Rachit Gulati, Nikhil Ahuja and Ankit Kapoor, Student, CSE
Department Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology “Intelligent
Transportation System Architecture for a Carpool System”. Published
V. CONCLUSION in International Journal of Computer Applications.
[18] Tejas Talele, Gauresh Pandit and Parimal Deshmukh “Dynamic
We have made a survey on issues related to traffic, briefed
ridesharing using social media”, in International Journal on AdHoc
upon on various research activities that have been carried out Networking Systems.
to overcome these problems, identified carpooling as one of [19] Swati. Tare Neha B. Khalate Ajita and A.Mahapadi Department of
the solution that can be adopted with ease. The various C.S.E J.S.P.M’s BSIOTR(W) University of Pune , “Review Paper On
CarPooling Using Android Operating System-A Step Towards Green
obstacles that are hindering the adoption of carpooling are Environment”, in International Journal of Advanced Research in
discussed. In next paper we tend to propose a system that Computer Science and Software Engineering, April 2013.
addresses these obstacles. [20] Carpooling and carpool clubs: Clarifying concepts and assessing value
enhancement possibilities through a Stated Preference web survey in
Lisbon, Portugal.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT [21] J. D. Hunt, J. D. P. McMillan, “Stated-Preference Examination of
Attitudes Toward Carpooling to Work in Calgary”, in Transportation
The work reported in this paper is supported by the college Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
through the TECHNICAL EDUCATION QUALITY journal, January 30, 2007.
IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME [TEQIP-II] of the [22] Prathibha Joy “What's stopping people in Bengaluru from
MHRD, Government of India. carpooling?”, in The Times of India, 11 November 2014.

REFERENCES
[1] Geetam Tiwari. "URBAN TRANSPORTION IN INDIAN CITIES".
London School of Economics.
[2] “ D. s.Jonathan Handbook”, in www.delhi.gov.in, 2013.
[3] Norman1; Heather L. MacLean; and Christopher A. Kennedy3.
“Comparing high Or Low Residential Density: Life-Cycle Analysis of
Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emission” in JOURNAL OF URBAN
PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT, MARCH 2006.
[4] Hirschman, K. Zallinger, M. Fellendorf, M. Hansberger, S. “A New
Method Traffic Calculate Emission with Simulated Traffic
Conditions” in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), 2010 13th
International IEEE Conference on 19-22 September 2010 Funchal.
[5] Vivek Tyagi, Member, IEEE, Shivkumar Kalyanarman, Fellow, IEEE
and Raghuram Krishnapuram, Fellow, IEEE, IBM India Research
Laboratory, India “Vehicular Traffic Density State Estimation Based
on Cumulative Road Acoustics”
[6] Dimitrakopoulos, G. ; Department of Digital system, University of
Piraeus, Greece; Dem’estichas P. in “Intelligent Transportation
Systems”, 2011.
[7] Heinz Jansen, Cecile; “A welfare cost assessment of various policy
measures to reduce pollutant emissions from passenger road vehicles” ,
Published in Transport Research, volume 4, November 1999.
[8] Moshe Ben-Akiva Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Andre de
Palma Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Pavlos
Kanaroglou McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada,
“Dynamic Model of Peak Period Traffic Congestion with Elastic
Arrival Rates”.
[9] Jason Hill, Erik Nelson, David Tilman, Stephen Polasky ,
and Douglas Tiffany “Environmental, economic, and energetic costs
and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels”,. Published in 2006.

Published By:
Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
120 & Sciences Publication Pvt. Ltd.