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Avego Shared Transport 2.0 Released

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

A major upgrade of Avego’s award-winning iPhone application is now available on the iTunes App Store. With version 2.0, the application has been redesigned to provide both drivers and riders with a greatly improved user experience.

A new UI for Avego's iPhone app

A new UI for Avego's iPhone app

For drivers, there are many changes that make it easier than ever to offer unused seats to other people in real time, including:

  • Improved design for day and nighttime driving
  • Improved information about routes and stops, including the time and distance to the ultimate destination
  • Driving without having to pre-record the route
  • Auto-acceptance of ride requests
  • Simpler creation of routes between favorite places
  • Auto-display of map view on approach to pick-up
  • Reminders of scheduled departure times
  • More sophisticated ride matching
  • More than 20,000 new Avego stops added to the network

For riders, there is a new web-based user interface that is optimized for use with any mobile phone (not just iPhones). The Shared Transport web application includes a simpler process for booking rides and more detailed statements of a person’s journey history.

In addition to these great new features, the update also realizes improved reliability and performance, as well as compatibility with the iPhone’s new iOS4 operating system.

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Avego at Disruptathon Event (June 22)

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Tomorrow evening, Avego’s Director of Government Relations, Jason Conley, will be presenting on Shared Transport at the Disruptathon Clean IT Tech event in Washington DC.

Avego's iPhone app

Avego's iPhone app

Taking place at the Canadian Embassy, Disruptathon features 6-8 companies talking about their disruptive innovations for an audience of 75-100 people. It will be a mix of techies, policy experts, government, and wireless carriers.

Avego’s presentation will include a video demonstration of Avego’s award-winning Shared Transport technology, which uses iPhone and web technology to essentially enable drivers to turn their car into a bus.

Drivers are matched with riders along their way in real time and Avego automatically manages an electronic micropayment transaction at the end of the journey.The system also enables real-time passenger information and includes a comprehensive range of safety features.

If you are interested in attending the event to get a first-hand look at how leading innovations from the U.S. and Canada are helping society reduce energy consumption while building sustainable new businesses, you can get tickets here.

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The True Cost of Driving Alone

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

AAA publish 2010 report on annual driving costs in the U.S.

Driving alone is costly, both for the planet and for your pocket. However, it’s often very easy to forget all the annual costs associated with driving your car. Fortunately, AAA releases an annual report on average driving costs, which make it easier for us to understand the financial benefits of Shared Transport.

Traffic congestion.

Traffic congestion.

The latest figures released by AAA show that the average cost of driving a medium-sized car over 10,000 miles in 2010 is $0.73 per mile. Over a year, this adds up to $7,300 and includes the cost of fuel, maintenance, tires, insurance, taxes, depreciation and financing, etc.

With 87% of the 1.1 billion trips taken by Americans every day occurring in personal vehicles, there are also high social costs, in the form of increased traffic congestion, C02 emissions and reliance on declining fuel resources, with the average vehicle consuming 550 gallons of fuel per year.

By enabling on-demand real-time ridesharing, Avego Shared Transport makes it easier for commuters to lower their costs and help the environment. Not only is the cost of the journey automatically and fairly shared between the driver and the rider, but every user can also keep track of their financial and C02 savings online.

Join the Avego revolution today, by signing up at www.avego.com.

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Avego at CTAA Expo

Monday, May 24th, 2010

This week Avego will be at the Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA) EXPO in Long Beach, California. We hope to see you there!

Avego’s Managing Director, Sean O’Sullivan, will be participating in the special conference “Thinking Outside the Bus: New Approaches to Commuter Transportation” on Tuesday May 25th. Mr. O’Sullivan will be a panelist for an afternoon session entitled “The Goldilocks Approach to Technology: How Much is Just Right?”

CTAA EXPO 2010

CTAA EXPO 2010

Please also stop by Avego’s booth( #130) during the trade fair on Tuesday evening and Wednesday to learn how our Futurefleet technology can enable powerful real-time capabilities for your agency at a fraction of the cost previously available to the industry and be operational in weeks, not months.

We will also be hosting multiple demonstrations of our end-to-end vanpool management system, which is currently being rolled out by VPSI, the world’s largest vanpool service provider, and our Shared Transport iPhone application, which enables on-demand real-time ridesharing.

The first 100 visitors to our booth will receive a FREE Avego iPhone accessory pack!

Please remember to give yourself time to visit Avego at booth #130 and learn how your agency can provide riders with real time information for less than $2 per day.

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Avego selected for ITS America Smart Solution Spotlight award

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Avego Shared Transport has just been selected by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America for its Smart Solution Spotlight award, highlighting its potential for reducing America’s reliance on single-occupancy vehicle commuting.

As the leading voice for the use of smart technology to address America’s transportation challenges, the ITS America Smart Solution Spotlight award highlights the best and most innovative use of intelligent transportation systems to address national and regional transportation challenges.

“This concept of providing real-time on-demand commuting services could play a major role in increasing interest and participation in carpooling,” said Scott Belcher, President and CEO of ITS America. “The use of intelligent transportation technology will help create a new, on demand transportation system using wasted seat capacity in cars that are already on the road. If successful, this could result in significant improvements in traffic efficiency and the environment.”

ITS America

ITS America

While most people understand the benefits and efficiency of carpooling, it is typically not flexible or convenient enough to meet the demands and busy lives of today’s commuters. Avego Shared Transport uses ITS technology to make carpooling more flexible, reliable and convenient by providing a marketplace for drivers to offer their empty seats to other people in real time.

This on-demand, real-time ridesharing system, which is now available as a free iPhone application, essentially incentivizes drivers to run their car as a bus, saving money by accepting ride requests from riders along their route.

A major upgrade of the iPhone application will soon be released.

You can read the official press release here.

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Real-Time Passenger Information in 3 Days at WhereCamp

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Earlier this month, Avego participated in the WhereCamp 2010 San Francisco “un-conference” at the Google campus in Mountain View, CA.

Screen

One of the real-time departure boards at the event.

Just a few days before the event, the hot topic on Twitter was how attendees could get to WhereCamp without Driving. Avego took up the challenge and in just 3 days put together a soup to nuts deployment of a shuttle service with reliable real-time passenger information (RTPI) capabilities.

Using Avego’s GPS-enabled mobile data terminal installed inside 2 vans, which were very kindly provided by VPSI, the service ran between the Google campus, Caltrain in Mountain View and the San Jose Convention Center.

Real-time departure boards were set-up at the event, so the 300 attendees could know exactly when the next shuttle would arrive.

The great success of the service demonstrates the positive effect that RTPI can have on ridership numbers, and further highlights the speed and ease of deployment of Avego’s hosted real-time information and management systems.

Wherecamp, “a community-led grassroots conference for geo enthusiasts, developers, artists, and theorists”, has grown from a small group of people three years ago to over three hundred participants in 2010.

Avego would like to thank VPSI for providing the vans on such short notice and everyone who used the service during Wherecamp.

One of two vans kindly supplied by VPSI

One of two vans kindly supplied by VPSI.

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The New Avego mini MDT

Friday, April 9th, 2010

A Stylish In-Vehicle Solution with Advanced Real-Time Capabilities

Avego is pleased to introduce the new Avego mini Mobile Data Terminal (MDT), which provides transport operators with powerful GPS-enabled real-time capabilities in a sleek and compact design.

The Avego mini MDT

Combining modern user-centered design with an internal GPS antenna and comprehensive complement of connectivity options, the mini MDT is an ideal solution for driving Avego’s advanced real-time passenger information, AVL and reporting capabilities.

The mini MDT’s 5” TFT LCD screen enables a razor-sharp color display, with durable touchscreen technology for providing drivers with a simple, reliable and user-friendly interface.

A range of convenient mounting options are available, so that the stylish and compact mini MDT can be easily, securely and rapidly installed in a wide range of transport vehicles.

Learn more about how the mini MDT can improve the efficiency of your operations by contacting the Avego sales team today.

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Cars Emerge as the Key Driver of Climate Change

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

NASA study analyzes the main contributors to climate change

A new study by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has concluded that motor vehicles are the greatest net contributor to global warming.

Car emissions are driving climate change

Car emissions are driving climate change

Rather than analyzing impacts by chemical species, the study based its findings on a climate model, which was used to estimate the impact of 13 sectors of the economy. The unique portfolio of pollutants, greenhouse gases and aerosols released by cars, buses and trucks was found to contribute the most to climate change.

This new analysis provides urban planners with a greater understanding of how to more effectively target emissions reductions. While emissions from the power, biomass burning and industrial sectors of the economy promote aerosol-cloud interactions that exert a powerful cooling effect, on-road transportation and household biofuels exacerbate cloud-related warming.

“Targeting on-road transportation is a win-win-win,” said Nadine Unger, who led the study. “It’s good for the climate in the short term and long term, and it’s good for our health.”

With so few commuters (less than 5% in the US, less than 20% in Europe) using public transit and the vast majority of all transport journeys occurring in cars (82.1% in the EU, 85% in the US), there is a clear need to improve the efficiency of passenger transportation by making it easier to fill up the vast amounts of empty seats that travel our roads every day.

  • Download Avego’s iPhone application here to experience the future of sharing transportation.
  • Learn how AvegoTM makes it easier to fill up empty seats in cars, buses and vanpools.

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Avego’s EU Transportation Projects

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Avego Participating in Major EU Showcase of GNSS Projects

As a leading developer of location-based transportation applications, Avego is very involved in the development of several cutting-edge GNSS (global navigation satellite systems) technology applications for the European Union. Some of these projects will be showcased at the Galileo Application Days event in Brussels next week.

The Galileo Speed Warning Project

The Galileo Speed Warning Project

For example, attendees can view a demo of the Galileo Speed Warning (GSW) CARAT Counter system, which uses location-based technology to incentivize safer driving behaviour. The end-product is an in-vehicle device that displays a counter of CARAT points which increments as long as a driver drives within the speed limit, and can later be traded for rewards, such as lower car insurance.

Attendees can also visit the OPTI-TRANS stand to learn more about an innovative location-based mobile traveler information and guiding system that Avego is helping to develop for the city of Madrid. The system will serve as a personal transportation navigation tool, presenting optimal routing to Madrid’s commuters, based on their current location and the real-time availability of empty seats on public transportation and in private cars (“shared transport”).

Hosted by the European Commission, Galileo Application Days will be held at the Charlemagne Conference Centre in Brussels from March 3rd to March 5th. In addition to Avego taking part in the “Applications Village”, Avego’s Eurasian Sales Director, Jonathan Guard, will also be giving a presentation on the GSW project at 11:40 on March 5th.

This post is extracted from the Avego monthly newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

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Improving Local Transport Efficiency in Dalian, China

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Avego China launches 2 new projects at Ascendas IT Park

Avego’s China office, which was officially opened last October, has just launched 2 new projects that are designed to improve transportation efficiency at the Ascendas IT park in Dalian, where Avego China is based.

Employees at Ascendas IT Park in Dalian

Employees at Ascendas IT Park in Dalian

A new Shared Taxi system will save costs for local employers and employees who pay to take a taxi home in the evenings when the public transportation services have ended. The system matches together people traveling to the same areas. Users interact with the system via a touchscreen interface in the lobby of the office building.

On average, 300 of the 3500 people working in the office building take a taxi home in the evening, which amounts to taxi charges of millions of Chinese RMB per year. Avego’s new system will reduce these costs by 40%.

An LED sign displaying real-time passenger information

An LED sign displaying real-time passenger information

Avego has also setup its Futurefleet system, with LED signs displaying real-time passenger information for a shuttle bus service between Avego’s office building and the entrance of Ascendas park. Employees can now make better decisions about whether or not to make the long walk to the entrance of the park, or wait for the next shuttle bus.

Anyone interested in learning more about Futurefleet or Avego’s Shared Taxi system should contact the Avego sales team today.

This post is extracted from the Avego monthly newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

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