| HOVER Concept |
HOVER System Fact Sheet November 2006 One of the biggest wasted resources in our cities is the thousands of empty seats that travel our transportation systems every day. HOVER provides the transportation system a way of accessing those seats. A significant increase in ride sharing would bring about many benefits for most cities, including reducing congestion and its costs, relieving pressure on infrastructure, reducing consumption of fossil fuels, reducing emissions from those fuels, saving commuters money, time, resources, and building better communities. Trip Convergence Ltd has a mission to reduce the amount of time and resources people spend sitting in traffic. It has developed the HOVER (High Occupancy Vehicles in Express Routes) System, the brand name for the first example of a new mode of transport called ‘instant facilitated carpooling’ or ‘instant facilitated park and ride-share’. Instant Facilitated Carpooling works where there is a critical mass of single occupant vehicle (SOV) commuters with convergent trips, who pass a convergence point to a relatively small destination area. Participants physically access (drive to) a ‘suburban hub’ where they can easily identify and join fuller cars going to their destination, leaving their own car in a safe and secure location for later collection for the journey home. In the evening an ‘urban hub’ is used to facilitate the return journey. It is a membership system with benefit sharing through the transfer of ride credits between riders and drivers. It is critical to note that (apart from joining as a member) the system operates with no daily preplanning or commitment from participants. The overall concept works because parking occurs on the periphery (like park & ride), rides are provided without the cost of buses and bus drivers, and riders do not require their vehicle during the day. It will be used partly by people who would like to use the bus except that the existing bus services don’t fit with their origin, destination, trip time, or trip reliability needs, and partly by people who would not consider taking a bus but who will value the opportunity to avoid the costs of driving to and parking at their employment destination. The system will work best where there is access to HOV or Transit lanes or Ramp Meter bypass that gives a time saving to drivers and riders, however it does not require that access to be able to work. The financial savings are significant and enough to attract a sufficient market share to make it worthwhile implementing the system, (on average about $2,500 per member per year, from tax paid funds) For transportation system developers the system promises significant benefits. For additional system capacity, per vehicle, HOVER is predicted to cost half as much as conventional passenger transport systems and a quarter of the cost of additional roading. Implemented into existing roading systems HOVER will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and free up valuable road space, reducing the costs of congestion. HOVER is a registered trademark of Trip Convergence Ltd. Trip Convergence Ltd has applied for a patent over the business process for Instant Facilitated Carpooling, NZ application no. 531675, International PCT/ NZ2005/000037. Trip Convergence Ltd is seeking city or region clients who are interested in implementing the system, including relevant intellectual property and operating software, under a license agreement. The company is also seeking sources of funds to support trials of the system around the world. For further information please look at our commuter focused website: www.hoverport.org. See the following newspaper article for progress implementing the system in Auckland, New Zealand: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10372248 For more information please contact Paul Minett ( paulminett@tripconvergence.co.nz , +64 21 289 8444, +64 9 412 7452) or |