carbon heroes

carbon heroes is a car sharing application. This definition of car sharing is akin to the likes of Bla Bla Car, where it is the journeys that are shared, as opposed to Uber (where the driver is earning an income from fare-paying passengers) or companies like Zipcar, where it is the ownership of the car that is shared. In the USA it is sometime referred to as ridesharing.

The service has operated via the Web since 2009. As a mobility solution, migrating this to a mobile app is a logical evolution.

carbon heroes operates as an open network for the general public and in private networks for employers and groups of employers (e.g. at airports, in business parks and retail centres). Public networks allow any user to join; private networks require some form of validation, for example through a corporate e-mail address.

At the moment, no payment is processed between a passenger and driver, although this is a possible future development. In such a case, the driver would only be able to mitigate their costs, not make a profit from each journey.

The system includes the ability to set up events as a destination, so journeys can be shared to music festivals, sporting fixtures etc., where congestion and car parking are normally issues and the event acts as a focal point for large numbers of people who will be travelling to the same destination at a similar time and for the same purpose.

An advantage of an app over a traditional website is that journeys can be searched in real time using GPS. So if a user finds themself in need of a journey now (for example, if they are left stranded when a prior arrangement falls through).

The app also allows users to create private groups. This enables members to share within a closed group, analogous to setting up a private group chat in Whatsapp. An example of this would be for a group of parents whose children belong to the same sports team or club. They might be reluctant to display journeys to every user, but would have confidence to share trips to events / fixtures when they will only be visible to the closed community.

The app has been designed to enter minimal data initially, to display a wide range of matches. These can then be filtered by whichever criteria are most important to the user (e.g. proximity, precise time, gender, smoking preference).

Users offering to drive must enter the details of their vehicle. This enables an important safety feature, that potential passengers have the reassurance that they will be collected in the correct vehicle and that a record has been kept of this.

Users are able to leave feedback for one another, to allow the car sharing network to be a trusted community. They can also raise concerns to an administrator if there are issues with regard to another's behaviour or the state of their vehicle.