The short story for the digital age

As a car commuter

• You are stuck again in Sydney's traffic,
• You are stressed out, all you see are cars bumper to bumper,
• You pay hundreds of dollars in fuel, tolls and parking,

All while

• Public transport still takes twice as long as driving, is overcrowded, and you have to change twice to get where you need to go,
• Infrastructure projects barely provide lasting relief, they are often controversial, expensive, long running and outcomes over the years are hard to predict

But today you can take matters in your hands, get behind The Smart Commuter project, and create a better alternative for yourself and other car commuters!

• you will save a lot of money by sharing costs,
• you can relax better in good company – to and from work (or school/university), 
• you will help to take cars off the roads during peak hours, thus reducing the nerve-racking traffic and its environmental impact
• you can organise carpools for different purposes such as your daily commute or for training and schooldays for your children within your circle of trust
• and you will still maintain your flexibility and independence

Sounds good?

Then help us with a pledge on our project to create the carpooling platform you will love!

Want to find out how much you could save and how people commute in your area? Try out our easy to use tools.

The complete story

If you live in the greater Sydney area, and if you commute to work by car, then you’re about to say goodbye to the traffic nightmare that you’re used to experiencing.

The day-to-day stop-and-go movement isn’t just getting on your nerves and getting you delayed all the time – it’s also having a dramatically negative environmental impact on those living in the city. Despite the media coverage that this generates, and despite the classic political promises to solve these problems, the truth is that the infrastructure simply does not respond to the needs arising from this reality.

That is why we’ve decided to create The Smart Commuter – a simple and smart solution to help solve both your problems as a commuter, and the environmental problems that this reality is creating in Sydney.

The Smart Commuter is a carpool platform that allows you and other people to cooperate with each other and make the most of sharing rides – in a way that will:

• save you money and frustration, getting you where you need to go in a more efficient, cheaper and more comfortable way
• offer you more relaxed and joyful commuting in good company – to and from work (or school/university)
• take more cars off the roads, thus reducing the nerve-racking traffic and its environmental impact
• make the roads and the streets safer

The Smart Commuter will make your life so much easier. Instead of driving yourself all the time, you can:

• read a book or the paper
• socialize with a new acquaintance
• make a smarter and more pleasant use of your commuting time – and of the time that you save as you engage in this carpool platform
• save on transport costs and make an important contribution to make Sydney a greener city

Plus, because safety is also very important, The Smart Commuter will be built in a way that allows people to introduce themselves through their profiles, engage with those that share common locations and who generate a stronger feeling of empathy and trust, and will build an increasingly solid community of peer-to-peer verified users.

The Smart Commuter will incorporate with Google Maps and will strive to integrate traffic information from public authorities and public transport – so that it can also make suggestions around the routes, thus letting you avoid traffic and point out congestions, road work or accidents. It will also offer a suggestion for a fair share of the costs.

In order to ensure its sustainability, The Smart Commuter will require a minor monthly subscription fee from active users, which is designed to keep it working smoothly – for everyone’s benefit –, and also to take it to all major cities in Australia as soon as we can scale it up to that level.

While for now The Smart Commuter is a project, we definitely want to make it a reality – which is why we are seeking to raise at least $50,000 to fund the creation of the app (which will be available for iOS and Android), as well as other initial production expenses, such as backend services, hosting, third party integrations (such as Google Maps), and administrative expenses that will allow us to make this happen.

So we are now inviting you to:

• secure your early access to The Smart Commuter, while also supporting our project, by choosing one of the great rewards that we have on offer.
• share this campaign with your friends and family members who may also want to enjoy the stress-free, economic, social and eco-friendly carpool features of The Smart Commuter.

Please keep in mind that we need your participation in this crowdfunding stage, as much as we will need it as the platform starts working. After all, The Smart Commuter is made by commuters for commuters – to make everyone’s lives simpler and better.

Thank you so much, and we hope to be soon welcoming you into The Smart Commuter community of users!

1. Show who you are

2. Manage your schedule

3. Plan your route as a driver or passenger, and set your times and locations

4. Make arrangements with your potential commuting partner(s)

• Please share your thoughts about this project with us, so that we can make it even better and truer to your needs – please take this short survey: ‘What would make you use this service?’
• Are you a professional in any relevant field for this project and would like to take a more direct role in making it happen? Please complete your expression of interest.

Our purpose is to make The Smart Commuter as efficient and affordable as possible, so here’s some more information for you to understand how your contribution will be used:

For $50.000:

This amount will allow to create the company and employ the central staff that will work full-time for five months in developing the platform and getting all the administrative steps properly taken to make it work. Any amount that is pledged above $50.000 will allow us to bring other domain experts to benefit the project – namely with a faster development and adding some additional great features.

Due to the social nature of this project, the people involved in creating The Smart Commuter will take below-market salaries – we believe that much in this project.

For $80.000:

Another $30.000 will be dedicated to bring additional expertise into the project, namely a UX designer, a backend and frontend developer, a geospatial data expert, a tester, and legal advice as well as accounting support. Please keep in mind that this is a very affordable way of making our platform happen – because everyone will be working on a discount pay due to our shared conviction that Sydney – and Australia – need The Smart Commuter.

The exact allocation of funds will depend on the raised money and people's availability.

Please understand that Pozible deducts automatically 5% service fees + 3% payment fees if the campaign is a success.

In terms of challenges, there are two that we can anticipate:

Adoption

Both in this crowdfunding stage, and once we have the platform working, we need to spread the word in order to increase conversion for an expanded user base. Surveys can be useful, sure, but, at the end of the day, you need to decide whether you would actually use The Smart Commuter – and what could make you use it. And, if it makes sense to you, this project greatly relies on your participation – and on your personal promotion of the idea, to get friends, family members and colleagues to join this carpool platform. We believe that the benefits are so strong, that we will have a very large number of users.

Implementation

Being a software engineer by trade, I can look back on extensive industry experience on large scale projects. I know how to leverage existing great platforms and services, how to build on top of proven open source frameworks and integrate with established third party systems, as well as how to avoid common pitfalls. Yet, I'm not an expert in UI Design, which is why I would prefer to work with experts so that everyone could focus on each member’s area of expertise. Finding skilled people with the right drive to bring this project to life is a challenge – although we already have some great people committed to helping the project. Still, if you are or happen to know someone with technical skills in one or more relevant areas, and you are electrified by the prospect of this project, please fill in your expression of interest.

Some questions you may have

Q: Why turn to crowdfunding for this project?

A: Similar initiatives did not engage enough people, but we hope to use the crowdfunding campaign also as a means of spreading the idea, getting people to talk about it, and having a forum to address concerns. A working platform will be pretty much useless without getting enough people behind the idea, without creating a carpooling mindset and without building actual carpooling communities.

Q: How much will the service cost?

A: To take full advantage of the service, a monthly subscription fee for less than a beer/milkshake/juice at your favorite place will be charged. You could potentially already substitute this with one day carpooling. Some functionalities may be free, so that we encourage as many people as possible to discover the platform. However, the service fees for active users are needed for continuous development of the platform and to pay for service providers (server infrastructure, third party integrations, etc.).

Q: How much can be saved by carpooling?

A: This depends on several factors. You can save on fuel, tolls, parking, maybe on car insurance, and certainly reduce the wear and tear of your car. To give you a better idea, saving 5l of fuel (~50km drive), means 15kg less of CO2 and about $3 more in your pocket – remember that you still need to arrange your commute. Add parking costs and tolls, if applicable, and your savings rise. If you do that 3 times a week, for a year, you will be saving more than $400 in fuel costs – along with keeping 700l of fuel from being burned, and 2.000kg of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. Plus, you will be taking a car off the road, like many thousands of others will, and, by that, you will make the roads safer and commuting more pleasant.

Q: But I don't think there are enough people in my area to carpool with!

A: This will depend on the adoption of the platform. The equation is simple: the more people join the community, the easier it will be to find someone to carpool with. There is great potential for people pairing up for a commute.
Even the Bureau of Transport Statistics offers a tool which you can use to gauge the potential to find someone to carpool with in your area.

Q: How to use the service?

A: The service will be available on Android and iOS/Apple devices. However, carpooling only happens by choice. The platform facilitates but cannot force people into engaging in carpooling. We can’t take responsibility for people's behavior either. So it will be up to each person to make a responsible use of the platform – namely by helping to build a peer-to-peer verified community of users, in which each user willfully collaborates with other users for the economic, social and ecological benefits that will derive from using the platform.

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You can also email us at [email protected]