A truly decentralized, peer to peer ride-sharing system based on a cooperative model where riders and drivers mutually agree on the equitable value provided and earned using a real time auction model.
What makes this model different:
- The cooperative governance model means a more democratic method for setting operating standards, provides members with a shared platform of services that could include member benefits. Riders would be required to join the coop and obtain an endorsement before being permitted to ride.
- Drivers could set their own rates or accept local market rates
- Drivers could advertise range and hours to aid in selection
- Drivers could receive alerts about demand
- Riders could make offers and Drivers could make counter-offers including a reverse-auction bidding system that lets drivers compete for rides, potentially lowering the over all cost to the Rider.
- Average trip pricing data would be available to both Drivers and Riders based on historical data and could be calibrated to time of day and location
- Endorsements would be based on a “web of trust” model originally envisioned by PGP with riders and drivers digitally signing off on the rating awarded and both parties having access to their own networks rating system. For example, a Rider could see the ratings of their friends on a given Driver to aid in selection.
The system will be designed using an open-source decentralized distributed ledger based on a gossip protocol that can bootstrap from DNS SRV records. Once online nodes would share the ad hoc peer node connection information with connected nodes.
Drivers could remotely control their nodes that would automatically manage their bids/asks and record their transactions and track taxable events including fuel, maintenance and miles. This decentralizes the computing power back to their home network which would have more reliable power and internet.
The coop could provide a branded “spend” credit/debit card that could be plugged into via API to pull and confirm eligible spend transaction data for the Driver and make tax preparation easier.
The coop would be the ideal location to provide small business consulting services and could potentially obtain preferential car loan pricing for its members in addition to potentially having a fleet of vehicles that members could rent.
Riders could run nodes and act as validators and regulators would be encouraged to participate to monitor the system.
The system is NOT designed to operate on a “coin” or a “token” per se but rather on the digital signatures of the participants involved in the transactions and could potentially earn “credits” to be applied to rides or rewards.
Initial reference design suggests deploying nodes on a pre-packaged Raspberry Pi brick and could be a potential nominal source of revenue for the coop.
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This effort is being supported in part by the Strength in Numbers Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit digital trust