Piggyback improves and brings simplicity to carpooling by providing several benefits over traditional systems such as real-time or planned trip management with automated and secure transactions between drivers and passengers after accurate ride-matching. As a driver, simply input your destination and number of available seats and you’ll be notified when passengers have been found, along with information such as total time, detour length, and savings amount. You are then free to accept or reject those users. On the other hand, passengers will visualize up to ten drivers to choose from, according to their current location and destination, trip price and ratings.

Passengers waiting for pickup can identify their driver simply by visualizing the car’s position, which is updated regularly, and the map zooms in as the car gets closer to the passenger. To further improve identification, the photo and license plate number are also displayed. After Piggyback has calculated routes, drivers will be able to rely on their GPS and Maps API for guidance to pickup locations.

Passengers and Drivers don’t have to argue over the price of each ride since everything is automatically calculated thanks to our algorithm, while financial transactions are processed monthly through the secure platform Paypal.

A system of ratings has also been implemented which ensures that unreliable individuals are evicted from the pool of users. Drivers and passengers rate each other on various criteria such as punctuality, car cleanliness, driving abilities, and “empathy factor”.

Authors: Christophe Petit Sebastien Petit
Additional Contributors: Jean-Micher Theriault, Francois Gibold, Raphael Arzberger

http://code.google.com/android/adc_gallery/app.html?id=34