Introduction
This txt system is design to enable ride sharing between several locations. Its been explicitly design to the blue skin bay area and to replace the current ride share system. I've decided that simple and to the point it the best approach, I've also decided that it needs to be a txt based system.
I think that everyone has a cellphone with txting and txting is really cheap these days.
I think that everyone has a cellphone with txting and txting is really cheap these days.
How the system works
There are several aspects of this system that I'm still looking at below are ideas of the process.
24 Hour System
The system is only 24 hours ahead from now. This is so that we keep it simple. So hitches and Shares will be done only 24 hours ahead in time.
Note - The system will have an understanding of Date and time.
Issue - Potential
5seecond to process an input. Q - how long to send one? This limits how much work can be done and over what period. i.e. how responsive it is. I've asked people to indicate when they will want to use the system and how often,. This should give me some idea of if this is going to be an issue or not.
Registration
Lets keep this simple. Ideally people can just register by:
Validation
Not sure about validation and if its needed. Basically we would need to somehow validate that this cell phone belonged to this person or have someway that we make sure that someone else is not using the cellphone. This is probably overdoing it and is only really done to stop people from mis using the system. I think this is unlikely and I'd like to keep it simple.
One solution would be to have people send in the code when either want a ride or not. How would someone even misuse the system???
Help
Help is offered from the system. People can just txt "help" to txtHitcher and they will get the following response, basically a menu of help, which then give the essential info:
Help Options
Hitching A Ride
The idea is that there are a couple of location both in town and Waitati/Warrington that are pickup/dropoff points, drop off points can also be where the people decide. Keep it simple.
How to start Hitching- making a request
TxtHitcher will what for someone to share a ride and see if it matches up with your request. If it does then it will offer a Ride
Offering a Ride
Once there is a match between a hitch and someone sharing a ride the hitcher will get a txt saying
"Mary Gardener has a ride Waitati to Dunedin at 830am would you like to accept? respond yes or no, if no response in 5 minutes then offer cancelled.
Rules of the hitching system
Sharing a Ride
send to txtHitcher a message with location and start and end time.
example "share waitati to dunedin leave 10am"
To share several seats postpend the number of seats after share
example
"share 2 waitati to dunedin leave 10am"
notes
1) leave time is at the location
Getting a Hitcher
When the system finds a hitcher match you will be asked if you would like this person or not. You need to respond to this message saying yes or no. The hitcher will then be asked if they want to come with you and if they do NOT then you will be informed.
example "John Smith***** is keen to get a ride with him, do you take john, respond yes or no"
Rules of Sharing System
The system will only ask about one person at a time and looks for a response. If there is not response in 5 minutes then its will assume that you don't want them
issue - this 5 minute rule should only apply close to the time of leaving. For example if someone enters that they are going to town at 8am and its 10pm. If you get a match when someone puts in they need a ride at 11pm then the person might be asleep. So it doesn't work like this. Nor will it work for hitching. Also there is a lead in time to getting to the location.
What happens when - Person isn't at location
If the time is right just leave. You can txt txtHitcher and say "no show John" or "no show" if there is one person or if you are sharing multiple people then "no show" txt hitcher will respond with peoples names then respond "no show john"
This will send out a txt to the hitch person.
What happens when - car doesn't turn up
Check that its the right time. you can txt txtHitcher and say "no show". This will send out the message to the share person. Asking if they will still turn up.
Ratings
Do we need this?
Ratings are design to allow people to build up references and allow people to report how good someone is. They are to be short lived (how long 2 months, 1 year, 20 events?). So for example if someone does a no show then people should know? and how have people rated them.
Could be the star system and number of events? or just number of no show.
Is no show the only rating?
Q - how do we get this information back, maybe the abbreviated form is star ****, for example "John Smith*****"
Wheres the Money Honey- How the system makes and spends money
All systems need money to run. This system will need very little money as text messages are almost free. But it still needs something, below are a list of all incomings and outgoings:
Inventives to share - To encourage people to share we could have monthly/weekly spot prizes, $20 $50 $100. Could automatically count out the money from the system. That would be fun.
Cost to ride - how much is that ride - $2 plus $1 (or 50cents) to the incentive pool? so $3 all up? user could buy 10 rides. first 10 could be free. Idea - have a pool of coins that people need to put the coin in and have entered these number. Then the money gets pooled and and the person that wins then just collects there winnings from the pool. That would be fun. issue how to count out the money. Also we could have the pool money going up by the day and this shown on the sign or txted to people. Rides could be 50cents but you can only buy 2 at a time, this way we are only dealing with $1.
Cost of sms - 20$ a month will get unlimited txt messages :)
Initial cost of equipment - donated :)
Income from advertising - the incentive pool and running costs need to be funded somehow, do we advertise and how do we do this? It would be great to have the system self funding.
Donations - donations could be accepted in the form of 1$ coins put into the box. This would mean that people could donate to the system without any human interaction.
Rules
Abbreviations
In order to keep things simple and quick abbreviations will be accepted. Below are some that are accepted
"Waitati" can be "Wai"
"Warrington" can be "war"
"Dunedin" can be "dun"
"to" can be "->"
"No" can be "n"
"yes" can be "y"
How to make the system expandable - world domination
It would be great to make a system that was easily expandable and scalable? I suppose money can get more cell phone numbers and but that means the contact number changes. Well not really. every system know about every location but then it refers to the controller at that location. And updates the person so that they now deal with the new server. Or do we have a single point of entry that takes everything, this is a bit brittle. How do i get around this.
24 Hour System
The system is only 24 hours ahead from now. This is so that we keep it simple. So hitches and Shares will be done only 24 hours ahead in time.
Note - The system will have an understanding of Date and time.
Issue - Potential
5seecond to process an input. Q - how long to send one? This limits how much work can be done and over what period. i.e. how responsive it is. I've asked people to indicate when they will want to use the system and how often,. This should give me some idea of if this is going to be an issue or not.
Registration
Lets keep this simple. Ideally people can just register by:
- txt "register" or "reg" to the txt messaging system number, we will call this txtHitcher Number
- txtHitcher will ask the following questions
- "Whats your Name, first name then last name", respond example "John Smith"
- "Where do you live", respond example "215 Blue Street Waitati"
Validation
Not sure about validation and if its needed. Basically we would need to somehow validate that this cell phone belonged to this person or have someway that we make sure that someone else is not using the cellphone. This is probably overdoing it and is only really done to stop people from mis using the system. I think this is unlikely and I'd like to keep it simple.
One solution would be to have people send in the code when either want a ride or not. How would someone even misuse the system???
Help
Help is offered from the system. People can just txt "help" to txtHitcher and they will get the following response, basically a menu of help, which then give the essential info:
Help Options
- Help - response with options to get information. "You can ask information by typing the following "Hitch", "Share", "Problem"
- Hitch
- Share , response "to share a ride
- Requests - sends out summary of requests (issue here is that we can only do 160 char for txt). Note - its unlikely that in a 24 hour period there will be more than 2 requests but it might happen, will just have to break up the response txt messages and maybe abbreviate it. For example.
- Offers
- Stats - enter someones name and get there stats, example "stats john smith", returns number of no show an events in past 12? months, 1? month (note don't want to keep to much information here).
- Rate - If you have just had a ride with someone or just picked up someone you can rate the experience. example "rate john smith 4stars" - star rating is upto 5.
- problem - a problem can be with the system or with someone. If its with someone then please state the persons name for for example "problem john smith didn't want to pay" or "problem the system didn't respond to me" all problem txt messages will have a human look into them.
- Requests - sends out summary of requests (issue here is that we can only do 160 char for txt). Note - its unlikely that in a 24 hour period there will be more than 2 requests but it might happen, will just have to break up the response txt messages and maybe abbreviate it. For example.
Hitching A Ride
The idea is that there are a couple of location both in town and Waitati/Warrington that are pickup/dropoff points, drop off points can also be where the people decide. Keep it simple.
How to start Hitching- making a request
- send TxtHitcher a message with start and end point and time, examples below
"hitch Waitati To Dunedin 8am to 930am", "hitch warrington to Dunedin 2pm to 4pm"
"hitch Dunedin to Waitati 4pm to 5 pm" - TxtHitcher will respond saying "Hi John confirming hitch request from Waitati to Dunedin 8am to 930am"
TxtHitcher will what for someone to share a ride and see if it matches up with your request. If it does then it will offer a Ride
Offering a Ride
Once there is a match between a hitch and someone sharing a ride the hitcher will get a txt saying
"Mary Gardener has a ride Waitati to Dunedin at 830am would you like to accept? respond yes or no, if no response in 5 minutes then offer cancelled.
Rules of the hitching system
- Many hitch requests possible
- Only one offer can happen at anyone time. If the person doesn't respond to the Offer then they go to the bottom of the queue.
- Its a first in first offer system. So I John puts in a request for a ride 10 minutes before Joan then John gets offer the place first.
- Each offer needs to be responded to in 10 minutes (maybe 5, or 7) or the offer will be cancelled and go to the next match. The person will then go to the bottom of the list of potentials.
Sharing a Ride
send to txtHitcher a message with location and start and end time.
example "share waitati to dunedin leave 10am"
To share several seats postpend the number of seats after share
example
"share 2 waitati to dunedin leave 10am"
notes
1) leave time is at the location
Getting a Hitcher
When the system finds a hitcher match you will be asked if you would like this person or not. You need to respond to this message saying yes or no. The hitcher will then be asked if they want to come with you and if they do NOT then you will be informed.
example "John Smith***** is keen to get a ride with him, do you take john, respond yes or no"
Rules of Sharing System
The system will only ask about one person at a time and looks for a response. If there is not response in 5 minutes then its will assume that you don't want them
issue - this 5 minute rule should only apply close to the time of leaving. For example if someone enters that they are going to town at 8am and its 10pm. If you get a match when someone puts in they need a ride at 11pm then the person might be asleep. So it doesn't work like this. Nor will it work for hitching. Also there is a lead in time to getting to the location.
What happens when - Person isn't at location
If the time is right just leave. You can txt txtHitcher and say "no show John" or "no show" if there is one person or if you are sharing multiple people then "no show" txt hitcher will respond with peoples names then respond "no show john"
This will send out a txt to the hitch person.
What happens when - car doesn't turn up
Check that its the right time. you can txt txtHitcher and say "no show". This will send out the message to the share person. Asking if they will still turn up.
Ratings
Do we need this?
Ratings are design to allow people to build up references and allow people to report how good someone is. They are to be short lived (how long 2 months, 1 year, 20 events?). So for example if someone does a no show then people should know? and how have people rated them.
Could be the star system and number of events? or just number of no show.
Is no show the only rating?
Q - how do we get this information back, maybe the abbreviated form is star ****, for example "John Smith*****"
Wheres the Money Honey- How the system makes and spends money
All systems need money to run. This system will need very little money as text messages are almost free. But it still needs something, below are a list of all incomings and outgoings:
Inventives to share - To encourage people to share we could have monthly/weekly spot prizes, $20 $50 $100. Could automatically count out the money from the system. That would be fun.
Cost to ride - how much is that ride - $2 plus $1 (or 50cents) to the incentive pool? so $3 all up? user could buy 10 rides. first 10 could be free. Idea - have a pool of coins that people need to put the coin in and have entered these number. Then the money gets pooled and and the person that wins then just collects there winnings from the pool. That would be fun. issue how to count out the money. Also we could have the pool money going up by the day and this shown on the sign or txted to people. Rides could be 50cents but you can only buy 2 at a time, this way we are only dealing with $1.
Cost of sms - 20$ a month will get unlimited txt messages :)
Initial cost of equipment - donated :)
Income from advertising - the incentive pool and running costs need to be funded somehow, do we advertise and how do we do this? It would be great to have the system self funding.
Donations - donations could be accepted in the form of 1$ coins put into the box. This would mean that people could donate to the system without any human interaction.
Rules
- People accept that there names will be used
- Addresses will not be published outside system
- Information within the system stays within the system
- People accept that they will receive messages from time to time advertising an increase in pool money or update the system or something else.
- No international numbers, if it not a New Zealand number it won't work.
Abbreviations
In order to keep things simple and quick abbreviations will be accepted. Below are some that are accepted
"Waitati" can be "Wai"
"Warrington" can be "war"
"Dunedin" can be "dun"
"to" can be "->"
"No" can be "n"
"yes" can be "y"
How to make the system expandable - world domination
It would be great to make a system that was easily expandable and scalable? I suppose money can get more cell phone numbers and but that means the contact number changes. Well not really. every system know about every location but then it refers to the controller at that location. And updates the person so that they now deal with the new server. Or do we have a single point of entry that takes everything, this is a bit brittle. How do i get around this.