How to make carpooling more fun

WATERLOO — You love the Blue Jays. So what’s that got to do with carpooling?

Well, if you knew you could share a ride with another Blue Jays fan, there’s a good chance you’d happily carpool to work more often.

A new study by a University of Waterloo professor shows car use could potentially decrease by up to 60 per cent, should carpoolers be able to commute with preferred fellow travellers.

“It’s always nice to carpool with some people who at least share some similar interests,” said Bissan Ghaddar, a management engineering professor at Waterloo and the study author. “Usually, that’s not the case.”

You might despise the politics of Donald Trump. So, it follows you may not want to ride shotgun to a fellow commuter in a “Make America Great Again” ball cap.

Or maybe you do. Perhaps a daily carpool debate suits your personality. Some Blue Jays fans might enjoy some regular carpool trash talk with a Yankees diehard.

“For example, somebody opposing Donald Trump would like to be in a car with other people who either op- pose Donald Trump or are likely relatively neutral,” Ghaddar explained. “Also there are other people who would like to share cars with people who would disagree with them.”

Either way, it adds up to more people carpooling when an agreeable match is made.

That’s the gist of the study Ghaddar began three years ago with the help of colleagues at IBM and a pair of universities in Italy. They analyzed the Twitter feeds of potential carpoolers, looking for insights into their personal interests.

Social circles were examined to determine if they followed like-minded friends or sought out people with different views. All that information was fed into a computer algorithm.

Of course, carpoolers were matched based on location and time preferences for rides.

But another factor — the personality of the carpooler — was also given weight.

The simulated impact of all the matchmaking was applied to real-world data from Rome and San Francisco. The end result? The study found that if carpoolers are compatible, people’s satisfaction signif-

icantly increases and car use would potentially drop by 57 per cent in Rome and 40 per cent in San Francisco.

Such a system, Ghaddar says, could ease gridlock, reduce pollution and make commuting more enjoyable. An app for such a system — which considers the social aspects of carpooling — could be developed. And it would certainly be welcome in this part of Canada, where Ghaddar sometimes carpools with a friend.

“If you have a carpooling platform available, they don’t take into account the social aspect,” Ghaddar said. “This is what we tried to highlight in our study.”

The study also focused on long-term planning for carpooling. Ghaddar would like to look more closely at real-time commuting for carpooling that considers the social dimension.

“Within one or two hours, I need a ride,” Ghaddar said. “Or within the next 10 minutes in this vicinity. Can I get a ride with somebody who is interesting or who I wouldn’t mind going with.”

Blue Jays fan? Trump enthusiast? Pick your carpooling company.