Public Transit 2.0

• Artist: Planetizen
• Title: Planetizen Podcast - 2008-09-11 - Public Transit 2.0
• Album: Planetizen Podcast
• Year: 2008
• Length: 13:10 minutes (7.59 MB)
• Format: Stereo 44kHz 80Kbps (CBR)

Mark Gorton

The problem of city congestion is one that can be solved relatively easily, according to Mark Gorton, founder of the Open Planning Project.

He says we have the tools we need right in our pockets. Web-enabled phones are a key building block in creating an Internet-based transit networking system that groups riders together based on starting locations and destinations. It's an idea Gorton calls "Smart Para-Transit".

We talk with Gorton about his idea to use mobile web technology to make mass transit more efficient and improve mobility in cities.

"Currently on the road networks of big cities, you have lots of people making very similar trips in private automobiles. And now, thanks to the advent of cell phone technology, computer technology, and other information technology, it's possible to build a system that dynamically gathers information about where people want to go, and routes a fleet of vehicles to make those same trips much more efficiently," Gorton says.

Gorton is also the creator of the file sharing program Limewire. With this background in accessing and sharing data, he discusses the details of his idea and how it might be implemented.

"The larger the system, the better it's going to work."

This illustration shows how Gorton's Smart Para-Transit could condense 12 trips into two by grouping people going from similar starting points to similar destinations.

Gorton has written a detailed report on Smart Para-Transit, which is available at Streetsblog, one of the websites produced by the Open Planning Project.