The RideConnect Vision

When talking about RideConnect, one question that doesn’t come up often enough is

Why did we make RideConnect?

What is our reason to build a platform like RideConnect?

Everyone has, by now, heard of Uber, Lyft, Via, Ola and myriad other variants that want you to use their app to call a car service.

They all give you variations of the same thing. You open their app, push a button, a car picks you up and whisks you away to your destination.

What they all don't give you is the ability to reach someone within your community. They all connect you to strangers and you are required to pay to get the service. They are all, essentially, a form of taxi service.

But it hasn't always been like that. And I'm going to argue that it'll not always be this way.

Human society has survived for such a long time because of the sense of community. This community serves many purposes, not the least of which is to offer protection and safety, something we've come to take for granted in 2016.

That is until we're feeling unsafe, or something bad happens.

RideConnect isn't simply about trust and safety.

RideConnect is about freedom.

It's about giving a community a mechanism by which they can coordinate, communicate and travel together.

Think about it for a second.

There are communities all over the world, whether it's in India, China or the United States. The people within these communities don't all know one another personally but are bound within it. That sense of community lends a sense of trust. That trust is further fortified through interactions with known people who vouch for, or against, other less known people.

Within this framework, there's an entire economy. People help one another out, sometimes at no charge, and often for some compensation.

Within this economy, the only simple way by which people can trade transportation services is RideConnect.

Yes, I hear the arguments already. You could use iMessage. You could use WhatsApp. What about Facebook? And there's Craiglist.

This is true, you could. And, honestly, that's a testament to the resilience of human ingenuity. People find a way to solve a problem with the tools at hand.

Those tools don't address the lack of a mechanism by which communities can plan, schedule, coordinate and travel together, safely and privately. They simply provide a forum within which people can discuss any variety of topics.

The approaches using tools like Facebook are as good as making a phone call to your friend and then hoping that they'll pick up and then be available to give you a ride, failing which you can try the next friend.

Service	Type of Exchange	Privacy
	Social exchange, Photo exchange, Messaging	Limited to "friends" and "friends of friends"
	Chat	Limited to directly linked contacts
Craigslist	Classifieds, buy and sell goods	Public
	Transportation scheduling and hailing	Private, limited to contacts in your phonebook and their contacts

What RideConnect does is to allow a community to coordinate transportation within itself. This could mean that drivers make themselves available to their neighborhood, school, city, or any other form of community that they want.

People within that community can plan their travel with these drivers by scheduling rides a day in advance. Alternatively, they can "order" a car just like they would on Uber or Lyft. Only, the driver would be from within the community.

The drivers can now figure out how to go about their day while also planning on giving you a ride to your destination. Not only that, the community can decide how much the service should cost, ensuring that the drivers are compensated and the people needing a ride get one at a fair price.

Parents can create communities of drivers that they’ve vetted, and then schedule the picking up and dropping off of kids while freeing up time to attend to other matters.

Drivers can setup chauffeur service for their busy customers so that they can get to where they want and back on their terms.

The possibilities are virtually endless.

Just like a traditional community, those drivers can be available to the extended communities. Think about that for a second.

This means that everyone who's giving a ride comes through a known person. This also means that each person who you know has been explicitly allowed, by you, to be part of your community.

This is RideConnect - ridesharing your way. A private, community based ridesharing platform within which you decide who shares rides with you, how much your rides should cost and who your customers are.

Welcome to the world with RideConnect.

Android Download	iOS Download

Click on the link above to download the app from the Apple App store or the Google Play store.

You may also visit the Apple app store on your iPhone or the Google Play store on your Samsung, Pixel or other Android phone.

Search for RideConnect, which is one word.

Look for an app with the icon.

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