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Development of a social ridesharing app to serve the members of the Technical University of Crete community

Charitakis Spyridon

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Summary

Ridesharing, the joint trips among multiple users using a common vehicle, is emerging as one of the most useful innovations in modern urban transportation. In the context of increasing environmental challenges and the need for sustainable transportation solutions, this practice offers significant benefits. Not only by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but by also providing more cost-effective and flexible transportation options, as well as alleviating road traffic congestion. This diploma thesis focuses on the development of a multiplatform application aimed at promoting group travel within the Technical University of Crete (TUC) community, in the city of Chania. The application stands out for its ability to offer an all-in-one product for both passengers and drivers by including both a passenger and a driver mode. Users, after selecting their role, can either create a new ride to help fellow members of the TUC community reach their destination, or make a request in order to receive suggested rides that fit their spatial, time, and capacity criteria. Passengers and drivers can see all available rides and all available requests in real time through dedicated screens. All users, with minimal personal data displayed, are listed on the Community screen.Initially, due to the geographical characteristics of the area where the Technical University of Crete is located, we separated the points of interest inside the Campus into two lines. This separation was made so that detours are avoided. Then, we selected the five most popular routes, to and from the Technical University of Crete, and created points on them to build complete routes. A two-stage greedy algorithm is utilized to propose suggested rides to passengers and they, in their turn, can choose which one to enter. The algorithm can also create cross-line suggestions, meaning that even if the passenger’s route is partially included in the driver’s route, with a slight change in the pickup or drop-off point to match the driver’s, more passengers can be served. The entire process is fully assisted with notifications and real-time data updates using a combination of WebSockets and the Publish/Subscribe messaging service. The selected architecture is the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) so that we can achieve a clean separation of concerns. Design-wise the Android part follows the Material You guidelines and its iOS counterpart, the Apple Human Interface guidelines. That way we ensured that the UI is fully aligned with the latest design standards from Google and Apple. After the beta version release of the application, user evaluations and feedback was used to identify bugs, improve usability, and shape its future versions.Beyond improving the waiting and travel experience by reducing both times, this application actively contributes to reducing the number of vehicles on the road, thereby decreasing the carbon footprint and promoting environmental sustainability. By using this application, the community of the Technical University of Crete can become a pioneer in utilizing innovative urban transportation solutions. This could serve as a model of sustainable mobility and inspire other communities. The contribution of this thesis to the development and application of innovative solutions in the field of ridesharing reflects an effort towards a sustainable future for mobility, offering users a high-quality and efficient experience.

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