Dynamic Real-Time Ridesharing: A Literature Review and Early Findings from a Market Demand Study of a Dynamic Transportation Trading Platform for the University of Calgary's Main Campus

The objective of this paper is twofold. The first part provides a comprehensive literature review on the state of the art and the state of practice of dynamic real-time ridesharing systems. The second part presents early findings from a survey on a social-network enabled dynamic peer-to peer dynamic ridesharing system called “FacePorter” at the University of Calgary, Alberta. A survey with a combination of revealed and stated preferences was conducted in order to evaluate the propensity among university employees and students towards participation in the FacePorting program. The survey‟s results confirmed some of the previous findings pointing to the influential factors in the success of peer-to-peer dynamic ridesharing, such as socio-demographic characteristics, attitudinal and behavioral factors, weather condition, ridesharing contribution fee, riders‟ profile and required incremental driving time. Furthermore, the survey‟s outcomes confirm that students are more willing to partake as ride-seekers in real-time ridesharing programs compared to university academic staff and employees. On the contrary, academic staff and employees seem to be more interested in offering rides.