Imagine taking a million cars off the roads in Malaysia, especially in the Klang Valley

Competition Driving Progress in Ride-Sharing Industry

Published on April 27, 2017

LikeCompetition Driving Progress in Ride-Sharing Industry

Ride-sharing is defined as an advanced transportation strategy that enables users to gain short-term access to transportation modes on demand basis. This space can be categorized into two main groups based on their business models: Rides coordinated through platforms, such as Uber, Lyft and BlaBlaCar; and Fleets of cars or bikes shared among users, such as Bike Share Toronto, car2go and Zipcar … for more, go to https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/competition-driving-progress-ride-sharing-industry-sourish-chatterjee

 Imagine taking a million cars off the roads in Malaysia, especially in the Klang Valley

Imagine what would Malaysia’s Klang Valley traffic be like if a million motor vehicles are taken off the roads?

It’s not an imagination as Volkswagen has pioneered a car-pooling concept plug-in electric six-seater specially and specifically designed for ride-sharing.

“This concept should attract more working commuters to ‘abandon their cars’ and opt for ride-sharing,” Gerakan Deputy Speaker Syed Abdul Razak Alsagoff said.

He said the concept should work and succeed to reduce vehicular congestion and volume in the Klang Valley “if the implementation and promotion are right”.

“There must be enough of such vehicles on the road to ensure convenience and to cater demand,” he added.
 

Ride-sharing: The solution to our transport woes?
Author: Ian Hsieh
Category: Culture
Published: 04/07/2016
Ride-sharing, or carpooling as it also known, isn’t a new thing. Picture a bunch of students all jumping into one car to share a lift to college in the morning; or a big group of friends heading to a festival who decide to leave their respective motors at home and journey together in a couple of cars. Your ride, shared. Cost-effective (only one trip is being made rather than three or four), good for traffic and the environment (less cars on the road), and sociable (everyone gets to hang out on the way, instead of sitting in solitary silence), ride-sharing has certainly got a lot going for it. And it’s making something of a comeback – with a 21st century twist … for more, go to https://www.inmotionventures.com/ride-sharing-solution-transport-woes/

Syed Razak, who is Gerakan’s nominee to contest N.37 Bukit Lanjan in the coming 14th General Election (GE14), said the federal government should quickly adopt such innovative ideas to help solve traffic congestion woes.

“Traffic congestion woes in Malaysian cities are deteriorating fast and building flyovers and rail links are not the best solutions, especially in the Klang Valley.

“Traffic must be reduced. And, to do that, affordable and super efficient ride-sharing services is just common sense,” he added.

“I wonder whether the sleepy heads in the Transport Ministry are aware of the global motoring evolution? What do you think?” Syed Razak asked.

Here’s the news report posted by The Star Online:

"Meet Moia, the VW-backed startup aiming to take one million cars off the road

TECH NEWS
Friday, 8 Dec 2017
6:00 AM MYT

The Moia car is a plug-in electric six-seater that was designed specifically for ride-sharing. — AFP Relaxnews

Car companies, especially those competing at the cut-throat, mass-market end, are usually focused purely on putting more vehicles – ideally ones they build – on the road. 

But with its latest venture, Volkswagen is actually trying to achieve the opposite. In 2016, it created a tech start-up called Moia with a massive mission – to take 1 million cars off the road by 2025 – via the creation of innovative mobility solutions.

And less than a year later, its first car-pooling concept vehicle is a reality and is this week giving the people of Berlin a first public demonstration and a taste of transport things to come.

The Moia car is a plug-in electric six-seater that was designed specifically for ride-sharing. Therefore, each of the seats is individual and offers the same levels of leg, head and shoulder room as well as a dedicated reading light and a USB port for charging personal devices.

"The car represents total comfort and is a crucial piece of our consistent service experience," said Robert Henrich, Moia COO. "We developed it using our co-creation process, which involved multiple rounds of potential users of various age groups testing cars and providing feedback. Many of the ideas from this process went directly into the development of the car."

But the car is just one element of the concept, the other being the ecosystem of apps and algorithms that make the service perform. When potential passengers reserve a ride in the vehicle, the system crunches data in order to ensure the vehicle is as close to full as possible with other riders heading in a similar direction and creates the most direct, detour-free route that the driver then follows.

"We want to create a solution for the typical transport problems that cities face, such as traffic, air and noise pollution, and lack of space, while simultaneously helping them reach their sustainability goals," said Moia's CEO Ole Harms.

The fact that the Moia car is zero emission will help cut down on pollution, but a single vehicle won't make much of an impact on traffic or congestion conditions in most major cities. And that's why rather than a single vehicle, the Moia car will operate as a smart interconnected fleet when it goes live – initially in Hamburg – at the start of next year. And if it works as planned then the company aims to push forward, quickly.

"In a short time, we've laid the groundwork to add a new mobility component to the urban mix. In 2018, we'll be ready to launch our ride pooling concept internationally and take the first steps toward our goal of reducing the number of cars in major cities by one million in Europe and the USA by 2025," said Harms. — AFP Relaxnews"

N.37 LET BUKIT LANJAN SOAR WITH SYED ABDUL RAZAK ALSAGOFF