Markus Turber
13.09.2010
Car2Gether: Hitch-Hiking
Last week we had the pleasure of seeing one of our current projects in the field of future mobility services going live. I am going to take the chance and explain the project a bit more in detail here.
car2gether is a new ride-sharing service making a debut in the German city of Ulm. The social media service is launched by Daimler and builds on a social network of drivers and passengers. Commuters sign up for a free account, enter the start and end-points of their planned journeys and share some personal info about themselves. car2gether matches up users according to their destinations and profiles and suggests a possible rate for the cost of gas etc.
The main difference to other services however is car2gether’s focus on ad-hoc ride sharing. Users can share and negotiate their rides on the fly via smart phone through a specially developed iPhone App and mobile website. An Android App will follow up shortly.
Just like car2go, a successful easy-to-use car rental program and one of Daimler‘s earlier pilot projects, car2gether is initially being launched in Ulm to test user acceptance and system viability. car2gether itself is obviously not limited to smart fortwo or Mercedes-Benz cars. However, the service provides easy access to the existing network of car2gos all around Ulm.
Intuity has been supporting the development of the project from an early stage. Together with Daimler Business Innovation, we worked on the functional and communicative concept for the service, as well as the design of digital platform/apps and analogue communication tools.
The launch of the project and the fact that a car maker is now extending its applied research into mobile communities pushed a little wave through the media. Here are some of our favorite articles:
As always we are very much interested in your opinion: what do you think about the potential of the project? Can you imagine yourself using the service? Would you like to see this happening in your city, too? Let us know!