Background
Our goal is to help increase the number of answers to a simple question: How can I reliably get from home to work (or school, gym, the theatre etc) and back?
Our first step in this direction is to make ridesharing a real option for users. RideCell makes ridesharing:
- Safer: by matching you only with people in your social or professional network.
- Easier: by making finding a ride or rider nearest to you as easy as a single click on your phone or computer.
- More flexible: by allowing you to find partners in real time which would let you ride in to work with one partner and return with another.
- Cheaper: by automatically sharing costs between the rider and the driver, you save an average of $227 per month!
- Greener: by saving hundreds of gallons of gas per year for every RideCell user, reducing carbon emissions and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
By automated data exchange, tracking, filtering, and monitoring, RideCell creates an environment of trust for the users. Real-time communications also eliminate the uncertainty of vehicle arrival time. On the back end, RideCell stores trip logs for transactional and subsidy purposes. Automated, real-time transactions may include rider/driver cost sharing,transit payments, employer reimbursements, subsidy reporting, or other forms of e-commerce.
Very soon we plan to extend our real time, location aware system to support public transport (MARTA), Zipcar and private transit (Stinger shuttles) - so you can choose the mode of transit easiest and most suitable for you.
History
Congestion relief has been a lifelong passion of RideCell's Founder, Dr. Steve Dickerson, Professor Emeritus GA Tech. Early on he envisioned the traffic problems that would come to define Atlanta and 1975 Dr. Dickerson initiated the first U.S. community based vanpool operation and brought car sharing to the Tech campus a year later.
In 1990 Dr. Dickerson commercialized a machine vision system based on his patented research in automation. The entity was incorporated as Dickerson Vision Technologies (acquired by Cognex Corp. .CGNX. in 2005). In 2001, applying the same automation techniques that took DVT to a multi-million dollar success, he patented a way to tear down the barriers to multi-mode transit by integrating the then emerging technologies behind mobility, transit, and banking. It would take nine years for prevailing technology to catch-up with his vision of real-time ridesharing and transit matching.
Inspired by his vision and believing the timing to build an innovative solution was right, Dave Kaufman (CEO), a Georgia Tech alumnus, joined Dr. Dickerson in his efforts in 2008.