Better to have your driver!!

It is expected that the price of petrol / gas / fuel (depending on where you come from) will continue to increase as we move through 2008. There are heaps of innovations, ideas, and plans to reduce fuel consumption (and thus save not only the money of the people, but also the Government) now going on. But it seems that many of us deride one of the most obvious ones before us. Yes, we all should get drivers.

The idea is that in a case whereby the only mode of transportation is a privately owned vehicle (i.e. car, van, pickup truck), a car-pooling system eliminates the total distance that a vehicle has to travel, unless in bizzare circumstances (say one person has to go from KL to Ipoh everyday while the other has to go to Melaka), but i'm from Sg.Long to Maluri, Cheras lol. Now if this is the case then wouldn't it save not only fuel, but also the need for extra cars in the family? This is what car-pooling is about, except that with a driver you retain a certain degree of control over how the system works.

Obviously one should consider factors that lend themselves into whether the system is a success or not - apart from the aforementioned issues of the length of the routes we have to take, another issue that may cause the system to be undesirable is time. Think about this - would it be faster if two cars went out independently to their destinations, or one car going to a destination, then going to another? Time is definitely something that is lost out here, however I would argue that as the issue I am planning to tackle is that of fuel conservation, this is something we have to sacrifice in the big picture.

The idea is not a totally foreign, brainstormed idea; rather it is something that is borne out of public transport. Everyday, people use public transport to get around (depending again, on where you are) - but did that occur to you that this concept is in play? You make a concession by accepting that the bus will go through the route stated, even if it is not a direct journey (which would minimize time and fuel theoratically - minimum distance). Going back to that analogy, does that mean that we should go for public transport more often?

I would answer yes, but then again it's a question of two factors going at each other - time and fuel conservation. On one hand you have the perfect time saving mechanism, a number of cars going out from a source to the destination, minimising time, but maximising fuel consumption. On the other hand you have public transport, which is very dependent on the route - it may not work for many - in this case you have a minimum fuel consumption (translated into those tickets you buy), and maximised time (since you have no degree of authority over where it goes). So in the middle as a compromise we have the drivers concept, which is what I'm getting at.

Would this be much cheaper than buying the new fuel efficient (aka hybrid) car you see in the showroom? Probably, though the situation obviously depends on, once again, a variety of factors.

So! Next time, appreciate your drivers :P They create positive externalities within the market, whether you like it or not. :)

Brandon~