athens ridesharing-final-project

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Athens Ridesharing Collaborative consumption Design project Group: Elena Katsara Periklis Skoulaxenos Instructor: Katerina Diamantaki CN 6040 Digital Media and Computer Mediated Communication MA in Digital Communication & Social Media 0

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Athens Ridesharing

Collaborative consumption Design project

Group:

Elena KatsaraPeriklis Skoulaxenos

Instructor: Katerina DiamantakiCN 6040 Digital Media and Computer Mediated

Communication MA in Digital Communication & Social Media

0

ContentsIntroduction....................................................................................................................................2

Review of research for similar problems........................................................................................2

Problem and proposed solution.....................................................................................................5

Potential impact as designed..........................................................................................................6

Website......................................................................................................................................7

Facebook & Twitter....................................................................................................................9

Mobile Application...................................................................................................................10

Conclusion....................................................................................................................................12

References....................................................................................................................................13

1

IntroductionSharing economies seems to gain ground everyday on every west developed

community. More or less sharing economies are built upon the idea of sharing every

kind of physical and human resources. On another approach according to Benita

Matofska as she tries to define sharing economies the term by itself “” includes the

shared creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services

by different people and organizations”. It goes without a doubt though that we are

talking about a multidisciplinary field that combines not only people sharing the same

values but also about people producing and distributing on their own (C2C)

As we are talking about C2C market we need a social and economic network for people

to contribute. Web 2 can easily give access on people and especially social networking

sites as people come together, discuss and exchange. Also the “real name policy” that

many SNS are making effort to ensure makes people feel safer and actually encourage

them to create communities beyond the keyboard.

Ridesharing is one form of sharing that nowadays is becoming more and more popular.

In Greece and especially in Athens economic crisis primarily lead on searching ways to

save money on daily bases. Even though “sharing economies” is a highly debated issue

and in Greece not common used new reality actually force people to contribute on

sharing.

Review of research for similar problems

Collaborative consumption grown a lot over the last years, it is a new socio-economic

idea that promises revolution in the way we consume. A research that took place by

Pieter van de Glind in Amsterdam resulted that 43.8% would take part in as a consumer,

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and 31.9% as a provider. From all respondents, 84.1% would take part in at least one

example of collaborative consumption. People are willing to contribute on a sharing

economy if it is possible to exist in any context. The need of that kind of economy is

need to motivate people start sharing their goods and services with others. It is

concerned that collaborative consumption is adopted mostly from people with higher

income and by educated millennials. But the research by Pieter van de Glind concluded

that the potential of this economy is in no way confined to only digital savvy millennials.

In addition, lower income families and bachelors are more likely to be motivated to

contribute and share inside the community rather the higher income ones.

The last 5 years collaborative consumption showed extreme grow in some currently

growing countries in Latin America. As the Ouishare magazine mentions at the end of

2010 the search of consumer collaboration “consumo colaborativo” resulted only to a

few results which were mostly focused on American results and examples. But after

some years the collaborative consumption projects of any kind were exploded. Those

kind of economies are connected with the current Greek economic situation. It is

concerned that collaborative consumption is mostly a reaction to the economic crisis

and after that citizens will return to their previous consumption habits, however the

progress of that type of economies in the countries experiencing growth gives an

argument that collaborative consumption is a community trend that lies in more than a

reaction to an economic problem.

Sharing economies thrived in a way that became huge companies even bigger than

regular big brands. According to Fastcompany.com Airbnb, a company which allows

users to rent out their spare rooms or vacant homes to strangers is valuated as a 10

billion organization even more than many famous and huge hotels like Wyndham and

Hyatt.

Inc.com through some info graphics tries to explain the benefits of the sharing

economy. Some of the data from those info graphics are:

Only 20% of women wear the clothes in their wardrobe

There are almost 19 items on each woman’s wardrobe that are ready to be sold.

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Many clothes are remaining unused by their owners, and a sharing project would save

many of them.

Ridesharing is one of the most common sharing economy projects, and the most

company oriented as many companies were created who deal with this situation.

Inc.com report that:

In the US, 74% of the cars on the road are occupied by only 1 person.

95% of the cars stay idle 95% of the time.

By increasing and encouraging ridesharing many more cars on the roads and those that

are idle could be used by one or more people and be borrowed to others for further

use.

Ridesharing (Carpooling) is one of the most used sharing economy systems because of

their benefits. According to howstuffworks.com “Commuters can take advantage of

many carpool benefits. Perhaps one of the most important benefits to commuters is

that carpooling saves money”. Gas prices led many people to follow ridesharing. Also

another big reason people are starting to carpool more is traffic congestion. As more

cars are on the road, the more traffic congestion is created. Cars with more than one

person on them would help reduce the traffic congestion and on the same time create

or improve a ridesharing community that would bring benefits to everyone.

4

Problem and proposed solution

In Athens the first thing that a citizen has to pay for is transportation. In order to follow

your daily program you have to pay for every kind of transportation. The tough

economic situation made Greeks who own a car to prefer the bus or in general public

transportation .Also we have to take seriously into consideration that our city is having

serious traffic congestion and if all of us change our way of thinking and put in our daily

routine a sharing economy mentality we could create a totally different image for our

city and why not to save valuable time. Furthermore according to ekathemerini.com the

concentration of air pollutants in Athens have reached as much as 15 times the level

recommended by the European Union over the past two months. Research by experts

from several Greek universities has shown that we have to take seriously into

consideration ways to reduce these dangerous levels of air pollution.

So our main topic and cause is to motivate Athenians to share their cars with others.

After all, it is not only a matter of money but also of great importance because of

pollution and traffic congestion. Athens is a city where 5 million people live in, so for the

sake of the environment we need to motivate people on asking alternatives on an

everyday usage of their cars.

So we decided to launch a campaign through social media for ridesharing. Our plan is

going to be based of course on our main target audience. We will propose through

social media a solution based on points we pinpoint below.

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As we mention before and based on research social networking sites are the main

“channel of distribution” on sharing economies. This is the reason why for Athens

ridesharing we've created 4 dedicated platforms to the cause.

Potential impact as designed  

Social media channels will be linked. We will include stories about ridesharing,

information about the environment, pollution rates for Athens and traffic information in

general (live road traffic coverage). Interaction in general among people who already

rideshare in the city will be crucial, as we need to create an online community.

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Website

Link: (http://katselen.wix.com/athens-ridesharing)

Our website is going to be the main channel on communication between the members

of our community. It will combine our social media platforms, our blog for news and

events between the members and of course will offer the on line trust that our users ask

in order to participate. On our home page for this reason every step our potential user

will follow ends up on the “log in” part as we need to use their real identity and in

general real information about them mostly for safety issues that may arouse. Also a

general tab about terms of use, code of contact, privacy etc on our home page will

provide further clarification. Especially people who offer a ride must be double-checked.

Our potential user will have the opportunity to find a destination or to list a rout as we

have two different type of users. People who ask for a ride will put on the platform their

data (starting point, destination, and date) and the results will come up. On the other

part, as about listing a rout every driver will put the same data with those who ask for a

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ride plus cost and number of people seats that can provide. Last but not least every

driver will have a profile on our website above listing rout with the name “drivers”.

Blog

Our blog will be embedded in the official website. Upcoming news and events about:

1. Sharing economy

2. Ridesharing

3. Pollution

4. Traffic

Those will be the main content of the blog. Also we need to create for people

rideshare an on line community in order to exchange things on line. Our blog is in

our point of view an on line feed column for people who already visit our main site

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and might not use social media in general.

Facebook & Twitter

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Athens-Ridesharing/1588582331397844?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/Athens_Rsr

Facebook is one of the most famous and commonly used social media platforms.

According to Alexa.com Facebook is the 2nd most visited website by Greek area users

and following the 1st social media platform used.). Twitter is selected as one of our

media because of its fast spreading tweet system. Hashtag and trend topics are the

fastest search and find feature of all social media available.

Facebook is used in order to promote the Athens Ridesharing website and expand the

community. The community will have the opportunity to get informed by the page in

topics related to Ridesharing, Athenian street topics such as traffic, pollution or any

other kind of issues on the roads. The same themes will be covered on Twitter, too.

Facebook will be also used in order to get feedback from the community about

ridesharing, to post photos of their car sharing experiences and tag their friends on

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them. The hashtag #athensridesharing would be used by the community to inform

everyone about road related issues or to share their experience on the go.

Mobile Application

Asking for a ride

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Giving a ride

Due to the expansion of mobile devices, the need of a mobile application that will help

the community share the services of the car sharing process is crucial. For that reason

we designed a prototype of a potential mobile application that can be released on all

platforms (Android, iOS and Windows phone).

The application is created and used based on two cases. Whether you want to get a car

or you want to share your car with others. The first screen will give you the opportunity

to choose between the options of sharing your car and getting a car of someone who

wants to share it with others. Next, on each case you will fill the time and the date when

you want the share to happen. A database of all the cars shared and people wanting to

get a car would try and fit you as soon as possible in order to help the community.

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Conclusion

Collaborative consumption is one of the latest and most anticipated kinds of

communities that will help the world understand how sharing and not owning can be

productive and useful for everyone. Car sharing is a new trend, car oil prices, pollution

are some of the reasons that may tend people use this type of collaborative community.

By giving help to a community like this, you may help lots of people and in the same

time help yourself saving time and money.

New technologies and especially computer mediated technologies can give us the

opportunity to share not only the cost of carrying a car but also the chance to gain in the

future even more. The economist predicts the future on sharing economies like on line

shopping. In the beginning of course people are worried about security but now are

dominated by professional “power sellers” (many of whom started out as ordinary eBay users).

The same may happen with the sharing economy, which also provides new opportunities for

enterprise. Some people in America for example have bought cars solely to rent them out. Who

was able to predict that kind of business because of sharing? It’s time to start caring about

sharing and to go beyond limits in order to share value and gain back benefits.

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ReferencesMatofska, B. What is the Sharing Economy? [online] Retrieved

from<http://www.thepeoplewhoshare.com/blog/what-is-the-sharing-economy>

Reynolds, C. May 18, 2015. Why social media is necessary for the sharing economy.

[online] Retrieved from<http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/05/social-media-

necessary-sharing-economy/>

Mompo, F. March 22, 2014. Collaborative consumption potential is beyond millennials.

[online] Retrieved from<http://www.co-society.com/collaborative-consumption-

potential-beyond-millenials/>

Van De Glind, P. September 19, 2013. [Study] The consumer potential of collaborative

consumption: demographics. [online] Retrieved

from<http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/2013/09/19/study-the-consumer-

potential-of-collaborative-consumption-demographics>

Toothman, J. May 16, 2008. How to Start a Carpool [online] Retrieved

from<http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/fuel-economy/start-

carpool2.htm>

Truong, A. April 18, 2014. Airbnb reportedly closes new round of funding valuing it at

$10 billion [online] Retrieved from<http://www.fastcompany.com/3029361/most-

innovative-companies-2014/airbnb-reportedly-closes-new-round-of-funding-valuing-it-

at-1>

Montini, L. July 10, 2014. The Big Benefits of the 'Sharing Economy' (Infographic)

[online] Retrieved from<http://www.inc.com/laura-montini/infographic/the-sharing-

economy-disrupting-life-as-we-know-it.html>

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ekathimerini.com . February 28, 2013. Athens air pollution found at 15 times above EU

alert level . [online] Retrieved

from<http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_28/02/2013_485136>

Facebook.com site overview [online] Retrieved

from<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com>

March 9, 2013. The rise of the sharing economy

[online] Retrieved from<http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573104-internet-

everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy>

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