Ride Sharing
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About this project
Ride Sharing app connects people with disabilities and wheelchair accessible vehicles. The team spoke with many Need-Knowers at TOM:Technion and designed a Zipcar/UBER mashup to address the challenge. Like zipcar where there are cars parked in dedicated spots, the vision is to establish a company that can provide access to a fleet of wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAV). From there, the challenge is connecting someone who is available to drive the vehicle and someone looking for a ride. The idea is to create a pay-it-forward model, perhaps a family-caregiver gives a ride to someone in the community, they receive points in a system called “carma” and they can use those points towards getting rides in the system.
The challenge
One of the two teams from CornellTech was tasked with creating a ridesharing app for people with disabilities. You may be familiar with apps like UBER and Lyft - both of these apps don’t provide a solution for people with disabilities like vision, hearing, and mobility impairments. While transportation challenges for people with hearing and vision impairment may be solved with education and training drivers, people with a mobility impairment may need more help with equipment like wheelchairs, crutches, and walkers. While some may be able to get into the car independently, others may need assistance, making the transfer into the vehicle difficult as well. It can be even more challenging for people who use power wheelchairs, weighing +300lbs that require special vehicles or need special anchors.
Who it helps
The need knowers are people with disabilities.
Project details
- Stage: Concept
- Built by the Technion community, Haifa, Israel
An open-source assistive technology project shared free by TOM: Tikkun Olam Makers.
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