So it’s a fact that Melbourne’s Public Transport system is pretty much broken. With an increase of something like 20% of users. And the Vic Govt’s solution is to get new trains in 2009.

That’s two years away!

Yet it seems to me that we could solve this transport problem by just more efficiently using the resources we already have. Namely all the people already driving around, mostly single passengers in four passenger cars.

And if there’s one thing the internet’s good for, it’s lowering the cost of collaboration to near zero.

All it would take would be a central reputation server – the eBay of car-pooling basically.

Sure, the idea of hoping in a car with a stranger could be pretty freaky. BUT those hazards could be limited, or pooling encouraged by allowing people a few selection criteria – just hook-up RRR listeners with each other, wrestling fans etc.

It could be automated by hacking into the GPS system’s people are increasingly using. Just plot departure point to destination and a number of seats free and a few algorithms could take care of the rest.

We need to start looking are more bottom-up solutions, rather than waiting for the treacle paced governments to get it into gear.

Just putting it out there…