Green Limousine ProjectAuthor : Kishor Kelkar

Kc square

18 Churchill Rd East Killara

NSW 2071 Australia +61294998784,+61412576675

Preface

• Green Limousine Project is a community Project.

• It is designed and developed using joint effort and participation of very large number of people to achieve certain goals which in the long run would benefit the country and its people in many ways by learning to share resources whose supply is dwindling day by day.(This statement has been made only when I saw a cold response from veteran CEOs/CIOs who kept posing me the same question who is the customer and my answer was there is no customer, we community are customer since we are going to benefit from this project not the big corporations)

• The project is not controlled by any big corporation who mostly aim at large profiteering to make their investors and executive staff happy at the cost of common man who gets fleeced during broad day light and government always showing helplessness witnessing this phenomenon in all walks of life.

• When I showed this presentation to learned people, everybody kept asking me similar questions.

Preface

• Who is the customer for whom this presentation is pitched for?

• Who are the investors in this project?

• Do you know you are competing with Taxi service controlled by single man who would kill this project.( it made me laugh when I thought that this has nothing to do with Taxi service which does not have any of the idealistic goals this project has).

• Have you considered legal aspect of this project? ( As if I am trying to some illegal thing, may I am creating a threat ton some existing norms of making money by not working hard enough to deserve it if that is interpreted as illegal. No body likes competition in his own back yard/turf.)

• Do you know its benefits also cause damage to number of other industries that far outweighs its idealistic benefits?

Preface

• Yes these are valid questions I do not disagree with any of them. Question is whether we have a aim of reducing our carbon foot print or succumb to the notion that economy must grow all the time to keep us employed no matter how much damage we are doing to resource limited planet.

• I will not exactly agree with the term "resource limited planet", although it is true that fossil fuel resources are dwindling. At the same time there are other infinite resources such as Solar power, water, wind energy, tilde energy, geothermal energy, unused land ( deserts) which have not been fully tapped and these are cleaner resources than fossil fuel.

• The fear you are mongering that people are going to loose jobs is just a load of bull shit. I would say you are freeing up human resources that can be better utilized to tap these natural resources on which we are showing great reluctance to invest and put our intellectual effort into.

I saw this program accidently on ABC

I thought I may use these two slides to emphasise my argument why “Green Limousine” and “Carpooling assisted by GL cars” are community projects which should be done by donating our skills Pro Bono to formalise the specifications of the project, designing the project, developing necessary hardware and software for the project, encouraging people to invest in a project ( Not a bulk investment but 1 GL unit of investment needed to add just on GL car into the Fleet), encouraging youths to drive these cars, honestly, sincerely and safely without ulterior motive of cheating the project. ( Pro Bono may not be feasible idea if we become serious about the project and there is plenty of money allocated for that in costing for s/w development, h/w infrastructure , maintenance cost, running cost).

Please Note

Presentation which follows is intermingled with so many different ideas, so message may not be very clear in first reading unless it sows a thought worm in your mind in the background.

Project can be done in stages, starting from last 10 KM area around each suburb well connected by rail/bus/ferry.

If people like it then it can be expanded to its full blown version.

We should never pose, we are threat to Taxi service or Bus service whose frequency becomes pathetic during non-peak hours and tyranny of distance in a country like Australia, Canada & USA cannot be avoided.

Customer in first stage

Everyday railway commuters who struggle to find a parking spot in peak hours or some one at home does the job of dropping at station and picking up at the evening.

School kids whose mums have only benevolent duty during the day to drop them and pick them using giant 4 wheel drives, causing headache to other car drivers.

Retired people to and from shopping centres.

School kids afternoon shift.

Revellers at pubs and restaurants who should not be driving after having a good time.

Customers in final stage

All in first stage,

Car pooling assisted by GL cars

General compliment service to taxi service.

We can handle events like matches and even dispersing airport traffic by segregating travellers at 4 to 5 exit points depending upon their destination so that car pooling is easy. GL customer service at airport can direct these people to go to correct exit point.

Introduction

Green Limousine project provides a transport service to commuters at a reasonable rate ( far less than taxi service , it is ludicrous to even compare it with Taxi service which has no goals of protecting environment and providing transport service at reasonable cost. ) by making use of various advances in technologies in different fields such as

1) Use of fuel efficient hybrid cars

2) Use of internet based automation using servers, smart phones and GPS data to link customer and the Green limousine car driver who communicate with the server indicating their GPS data and identification associated with credit card details.

3) All transactions are automated so no money is exchanged between driver and the customer.

Introduction (cont.)

4) The aim of project is not to make huge profit at the cost of higher tariff to travel, passed on to customers, but to keep service running with a very moderate profit margin ( not more than 5%) on investment.

5) The aim is to create employment for young people, single mothers and retired people who find it hard to enter job stream and give them breathing space before they find better opportunity.

6) The salary earned in this job is Government recommended minimum wage rate which keep pace with cpi recommended by government regulation. You cannot expect any pay rise in this job for simple reason, you are supposed to do it only when you cannot find any other job.

Introduction(cont.)

7) We just cannot afford to pay you more than minimum wage rate otherwise we will not be able to offer cheaper transport to commuters. It is my personnel opinion that car driving in modern world is not such an uncommon skill that one can demand a high wage for just being a careful, law abiding, safe driver. You possess so many great skills such as writing, reading, hearing spoken language and understanding the meaning of spoken words and putting your thoughts into written document, but no body pays you only because you possess these skills. These among others, safe car driving is just a common skill for which basic minimum wage is good enough. I also say, I do not expect to drive GL car for life and making life, it is only an alternative option open to anybody if he/she cannot find any other job for any reason and wants to have a breathing space and live with dignity until he/she finds another high paying job. You should drive GL only if you believe in preserving our ECO system by minimising our carbon footprint. If you do not trust in this principle, then you should not participate in this project in any way.

Introduction(cont.)

8) You should not be ashamed to drive a GL car under the assumption that you could not get any other job, on the other hand you should feel pound as you are part of national project to save our environment.8.1) One of the aim of this project is minimise private car ownership by providing affordable service which makes private ownership redundant.9) By minimizing number of cars, improve traffic congestion problem, encourage car sharing.10) Although I have said in the beginning, GL project is not to compete with existing Taxi service, it has far superior goals of projecting environment, creating jobs , minimize number of privately owned cars, mitigate traffic congestion problem, facilitate car sharing and pass on benefit of car sharing back to its customers. It is not any lobby group who is trying to influence government decisions and politicians.

Introduction(cont.)

11) You have to subscribe to GL service by becoming a member of this project, to take advantage of its cheap travel rates. You can help this project by becoming a commuter who uses this service or by becoming a service providing member of this service by sponsoring one GL car in the fleet of GLs. This sponsorship is not a donation to this service, it is in fact an investment in this project. We restrict sponsorship to only one GL car per family. This is to promote the idea that each and every family can invest in this bona fide project just like you shop commodities in super market with a Iron clad guarantee that you will not be cheated. Our book-keeping is transparent and open to public. There is no secret in this venture except for a national passion to save our environment.

Introduction(cont.)

12) By becoming a member ( user or donor) of any kind you are making a statement , you believe in science, and global warming and you are keen to help us achieve this goal.

How does GL project work?

GL consists of following components

1) Fuel efficient Cars

2) Registered Subscribers

3) Internet based servers who get GPS data from both GL cars as well as subscribers who demand service.

4) There is a server dedicated to serve certain rectangular section of the city area. The boundaries of this rectangular area are defined by longitude ( Y coordinate ) and latitude ( X coordinate ).

5) While reporting GPS data client ( GL driver or a subscriber will use its current GPS data to find out which is the server dedicated to this area.

How does GL work?

6) So a given server has two types of clients. GL cars report to the server that GL is ready to serve next client. Subscriber represent customers who want GL service. Since these Service provider and Subscriber fall within boundaries of same rectangle, it is easy for server to link the subscriber to nearest available GL car and it will notify that GL car about subscriber’s position and destination where subscriber wants to go. Subscriber uses smart phone application which is customised for a particular city area where GL cars and its subscribers reside. This customisation would provide all the data initialisation needed to know distribution of servers and the boundary condition for area the server serves and also alternative servers in case assigned server fails.

How does GL work?

7) Distributed servers provide redundancy, improve reliability and distribution of load and matching subscriber’s current location with nearest possible GL car waiting to pick up next client.

8) When GL accepts the subscriber’s request passed on via server, notifies the server that it is busy serving the customer. Server would remove this GL car from a queue of waiting GL cars in that area. Server would also notify the subscriber that his/her request has been accepted and such and such car with registration number is approaching to pick him/her up.

9) Each subscriber has an ID card, smart card along with all information about the subscriber about his billing address and credit card details. When subscriber enters GL car which is fitted with Premise like equipment which has card reading facility, GL car driver swipes subscriber’s card.

How does GL work?

10) This subscriber data along with GPS data for pickup point for a subscriber is sent by GL car to the Server. Server will pass this information for a given subscriber to central server which is dedicated for Billing purpose.

11) When subscriber reaches destination, GL car driver will swipe the Subscriber ID card again and pass on GPS data for drop off point for the same subscriber who initiated journey. GL car fitted with Premise like equipment keeps track of all the path it has taken to reach the customer up to pick up point and then from pickup to drop off point. This record is sent to server to calculate distance travelled and also find if GL has to use any toll-ways along the path. Billing server will charge the customer for the path travelled from pickup to drop off point plus any toll charges incurred during travel. If there are any other subscribers sharing the path travelled during the journey then sharing customers are billed less ( 60% if two share) and (40% if three share).

Explaining Server distribution

For the purpose of design we have to assume coverage of area we are going to serve.

• Assume Left boundary passes through Blue mountains

• Right boundary passes through Palm beach

• Top boundary passes through Wilberforce and

• Bottom boundary passes through Campbelltown.

• We treat longitude as x coordinate

• We treat latitude as y coordinate

The route from 18 Churchill Rd East Killara to 13 Merriwa st, Katoomba is assumed and it is highlighted on the map shown in next slide

Explaining Server distribution

Longitude and latitude for area bounding locations1) Left most edge (vertical) which passes through the town Blackheath is marked as long1 Latitude = 33.6356° S, Longitude = 150.2836° E

2) Rightmost edge (vertical) which passes through Avalon is marked as long2 Latitude = 33.6336° S, Longitude = 151.3326° E

3) Topmost edge (horizontal) which passes through town Bilpin is marked as lat1 Latitude = 33.5000° S, Longitude = 150.5333° E

4) Bottommost edge (horizontal) which passes through town Campbelltown is marked as lat2 Latitude = 34.0650° S, Longitude = 150.8142° E

Area divided into small rectangles, each served by a single server ( note some rectangles may be redundant and servers may not exist for such unreachable area

Locating the server to report

Using current GPS data , equipment fitted in GL car or a customised smart phone application or a pocket version of premise can find which is the nearest server dedicated to the rectangular are it currently lies within.

GL car reports

1) Either it is ready to server next customer and waits

2) Or GPS data for pickup point along with subscriber ID

3) Or GPS data for drop off point along with subscriber ID

4) Or it has accepted request to pickup new subscriber

Processing Requests from GL car

Depending upon nature of request Server would do following

1) If it is a request which says GL car is ready to server new customer then server would add GL car to Ready Queue for the rectangular area under its jurisdiction.

2) If it is request from a pickup point then GPS data for pickup point along with subscriber ID would be sent to billing server

3) If it is a request from a drop off point then GPS data for drop off point along with subscriber ID will be sent to Billing server. At the same time GL car will be added to the ready queue of the server which received this request. Server would also notify the subscriber that his/her request has been accepted.

4) If GL car has accepted the request to pickup the customer, server will remove GL car from ready queue for this area, If GL does not accept the request, then server would try next GL car in the ready queue to serve the customer.

Note all GL request carry Identification of GL car.

GL car status possibilities

1) When GL car reports it is ready to take new request after dropping off the customer, there number of things that we can consider

2) GL does not have to move to any common point like a Taxi stand, it can stay wherever it is feasible to park the car without being hurdle to other traffic.

3) While waiting GL car can accept request from nearby GL subscriber without him/her making a request to the server. All GL car has to do is send message to the server that it is no longer free and send details of customer it has accepted. Server would remove GL car from the waiting queue and also send request to billing server regarding GL subscriber, identification and GPS position of pickup point.

Processing request from GL subscriber

1) Subscriber needing GL service would send request to server dedicated for the rectangular area such that GPS data lies within this rectangle. Server would check the ready queue for GL cars. If the queue is not empty, then get the first GL car in the queue and send request to this car along with other details about the subscriber such as subscriber’s current position ( translated into street number and suburb , and destination where subscriber wants to go). ( As described above GL car does not leave the GPS position when customer is dropped, so server knows positions of all GL cars waiting, Server may decide to find nearest GL car from the pickup point saving money spent in fuel to reach the customer, which is not charged to the customer, in this case it will be any one car in the waiting queue that is removed from the list. We have to maximise useful km in total travel of GL car to improve efficiency).

Processing request from GL subscriber

2) GL car irrespective of destination where subscriber has to go, must accept the request, and notify server that it has accepted the request. In only emergency situation GL may decline the request.

3) If ready queue is empty or GL has declined the request then server would send request to nearby server who will take care of subscriber request. This retry effort continues until server can find GL car to serve the request.

4) As described above, if GL subscriber sees in waiting GL car he/she may hail the car for the service and GL car would report that it has accepted a GL customer send request to server that it is busy along with details of customer ID and GPS data for pickup position.

Server redundancy and reliability

There is a back-up server for each server main server expects communication on socket Ipx:Px where as back-up server running on another host expects communication on Ipx:Px+1.

Each request is decrypted and server would return the response by echoing back the request or an appropriate response with ID of the request sent back in response. If client does not receive acknowledgement then it would try back-up server. If that also fails then it would try server in the vicinity of the preferred rectangle.

Preferred rectangle means which contains GPS data of requesting client. Servers are also located in different public subnets so that if some public space is not reachable, there are other public spaces where active server can be found.

Alternative cheaper implementation of server

Instead of having too many servers as shown above, we can have far few number of servers in which server is allocated for a large size rectangular block and server itself analyses GPS data and puts the GL car in a separate queue created for smaller rectangles enclosed within big rectangle.

Criteria to select server is still the same for clients, however number of small size queues are formed by server itself to make sure closed GL car is selected to serve the customer. Note distance travelled by GL car to reach the pickup point is not charged to the customer, hence it is a lost distance for which GL looses money.

Track record server

GL car keeps record of GPS data along with time stamp and also the subscriber IDs who used GL car from pickup point, intermediate pickup point and destination points. When GL finally drops last passenger at his/her destination, the track record data is uploaded to track record server.

This record would have information such as

1) GL car ID

2) Driver ID

3) Subscriber IDs

4) When Subscriber X enters and leaves the GL car.

5) There are applications such as Car pooling assisted by GL car where

6) Subscribers will enter and leave GL car which suits their travelling needs.

7) Track record server finally sends this record to Billing server which would analyse track record data to find distance travelled by each passenger and how much part of that distance was travelled simultaneously with other passengers so that they are charged concessional rate of 60% if two share the path and 40% if three share the path or normal 100% when only one passenger is exclusively using GL car. It also takes into account any tollways traversed. Cost sharing also applies to toll charges by same rule. GL billing server tries to give benefit of GL sharing to its customers to encourage sharing.

Billing server

Billing server has details such as Subscriber ID, subscriber credit card details, pickup point and drop off point GPS data along with path record from the GL car along with time stamp. Billing server can calculate how much distance was traversed by GL car and whether there was any usage of tollways during travel.

Billing server also knows whether GL car was shared by more than one subscriber, it would charge only 60% if path was shared by two subscribers or 40% if it was shared by three subscribers, so subscriber benefits if he/she is ready to share the GL car with others.

GL project also makes it possible to do car pooling by

Billing server(cont.)

By gathering data about customers, knowing their travel needs, the place where they live and destination they have to reach and time they have to reach. GL would use this data and make it possible to share the car on highways, tollways and dropping of commuters at exit points from which other GL cars will pick them up until they reach destination.

There is no extra charge for number of hops needed to complete the journey. It is only proportional to distance travelled, and customers benefit further if they share the path with other subscribers.

Billing server exactly knows how many subscribers shared the path and for how long they shared it, including any toll charges which are also shared. The amount due is deducted from subscriber’s credit card.

Billing server(cont.)

The aim of GL is not to exploit the situation but give benefit of sharing honestly to their customers who have made a life statement that they want to protect the environment by being part of this project.

It is in some way similar to Opal card but differs significantly from it by the fact that some Opal card user are paying more than what they were before and Government is hiding the information and blatantly refusing that it is charging more. How much hypocrisy you want from a Government?

Costing and feasibility

1) Toyota Camry hybrid cars will be used to provide roomy space for subscribers and carry some luggage as well.

2) Brand New Camry today costs 35,000 dollars special deal

3) There is a three year warranty or 175,000 Km whichever happens before to replace Hybrid battery.

4) We assume Car to be driven by three drivers with a shift of 8 hours and average distance of 400 Km per day cumulative by all three drivers in a day.

5) We assume there will be 1 Million subscribers in a city like Sydney

Costing and feasibility

One million customers will not be there on day one, but over period of three years we expect this number to grow due to popularity of various services and possibilities it offers.

Number of GL cars deployed would be proportional to the need of the customers.

Assuming each subscriber travels on and average of 20 km per day . It could be less it be more or it could be even zero for some customers.

They may travel only few days in a week.

How many cars are needed?

Distance travelled by 1,000,000n customers with an average of 20Km per day.

20,000,000 Km

Effective distance useful out of 400 Km is only 240 Km since 40% is wasted in reaching the customer up to pickup point.

20,000,000.

We would need 83,000 GL cars at the end of three years

If we assume we reach a target of 1 Million linearly in three years

Then for first year we would need only, 27,777 GL cars

Say 28,000 cars

Yearly expense of one GL car

2000 dollars comprehensive Car Insurance

600 dollars registration fee

600 dollars CTP Green Slip

1500 dollars Car repair

300 dollars driver’s license fee.

Car value including GST 10% and 5% stamp duty 40,425 dollars

Cost and feasibility

Assuming car efficiency of 6 litres per 100 Km, each car needs

A petrol worth 24 litres per day at a worst case average rate of 2 dollars a litre for 95 octane Premium unleaded petrol

To drive 175,000 Km at a rate of 400 Km per day

How many days we have to run the car 438 days.

In this period we want to payback car loan plus 6% interest on it

40,425+2910 = 43335 dollars.

Petrol expense = 21024 dollars

Drivers salary = 119808 dollars

Cost and feasibility

Insurance scaled to 438 days = 2400

Registration = 720 dollars

CTP Green sleep = 720 dollars

Driver’s license = 420 dollars

To complete legal obligation and get a permit to commission one GL car just like Taxi, we have to buy a GL plate which is same as 250,000. It is a huge money but it is one time investment which GL investor has to borrow from the bank. We only pay interest on this amount just like Investment Property Interest only payment.

Cost and feasibility

Interest on this amount at a rate of 6% for 438 days is $18,000.

It is bad luck we have to pay this amount else Taxi lord would object to our service not meeting legal obligation.

We also have to take work cover insurance which would be about $2400 per car to cover all three drivers in three shifts.

Considering the size of business, it may be possible to strike a deal with Insurance company for such a premium.

Total cost

43335 + 21024 + 119808 + 2400 + 720 + 720 + 420 + 1800+18000+2400

= 210627 To be recovered in 105000 effective km

So it comes to 2.05 dollars a km

So a travel from Killara to Airport ( 30 km)

Should cost

30*2.005 + 12 dollars toll charge = 72 dollars which is cheaper than

Taxi fare of 90 dollars

Assuming more road Tax due heavy road usage fare may increase from 2.005 to $2.1/km which means 72 dollars would change to 75 dollars still cheaper than 90 dollars. ( Petrol rate assumption is higher for worst case scenarios, better price negotiation possible on the basis of huge petrol consumption by GL fleet)

Each subscriber has to pay 60 dollar yearly subscription fee to keep

Server and administrative network running reliably

So for first year

Subscription fee is 20,000,000 million dollars

Driver subscription fee 500 dollars per year 14,000,000 dollars

System development cost + Infrastructure+RunSystem development cost2,000,000 dollars2,000,000 hardware cost1,000,000 administrative cost to maintain system running 24/7 , 365 days in a year1,000,000 communication cost from ISPs + Data SIM cards34,000,000 – 6,000,000 = 28,000,000 millionsCost of car after it has run 175,000 = 20,000 dollars each28,000 * 20,000 = 560,000,000 Even if we keep cars running for three years full , they would have travelled438,000 km average distance a Taxi travels in three years

After 438 days

We can refund the investor the amount of 21,000 dollars or a used car whichever he prefers.

By that time he would own the car, paid in full along with interest plus

Premium.

Previously I said GL should not be paying 250,000 GL plate Licence fee. This would not be feasible under regulations which govern Taxi business. To be on level playing field, I have assumed that GL plat would cost same as Taxi Plate which is 250,000. To reduce its burden on commenters, I make an assumption that GL would pay this fee but pay interest on this amount for life time. This would at least remove objection by Taxi Lord and the Government which is equally hungry to grab huge licence fee.There may be extra road tax for GL not like one for privately owned car due to high ware and tear of road due to heavy usage of roads 400 km/per day.

This would make fare $2.1/km.

GL will have to pay the GL plate fee which is same as Taxi plate namely 250,000 dollars.1) It is not aim of GL to make outrageously high profits like Taxi company, still GL

has to pay 250,000 dollars GL plate fee to remove objection by Taxi service. GL cannot be exempted no matter how much lofty goals it has. These lofty goals must be there to lure common man to GL service over Taxi service.

2) The aim of GL is to provide fare transportation rates which a common person can afford and pass benefits of sharing a GL car.

3) To reduce private car ownership

4) To enable car pooling

5) To reduce number of cars on the street

6) To protect the environment

7) To reduce carbon foot print on a national scale

8) To create jobs for the needy unemployable youths, young mother

Epilogue

• Just imagine how much employment for youths/students/single mothers/retired people is generated.

•

• Skills needed to drive a GL car are not exceptionally high

• All we expect them is they be honest/sincere/reliable and safe driver having some understanding that their service is valuable and it is aimed to solve number of problems at the same time such as

• Green house gas emission reduction

• Peak hour traffic congestion

• Too much private car ownership

• If you travel to work by a chauffeur driven car ( GL car driver) then you are freed to worry about driving the car and you can use that time

Epilogue

• Either thinking about work, entertaining yourself with earplugs, doing some work on your iPAD, laptop , even meditating , all this leads to increase your productivity

• You are fresh when you reach work, not tired and irritated due to travel time of 30 to 60 minutes.

• Just a city of Sydney would create half a million jobs ( some full time some part time suitable for students/single mothers/retired people)

• The rest of big cities and other medium level cities all put together would create another 1 million jobs in Australia for all those who cannot enter job stream.

• I would not encourage any one who is just not interested in doing any work and happy to live rest of his/her life on dole instead of accepting the job and not being honest/sincere/reliable/safe worker.

• Although there are checks and balances performed by the server to find out performance of a GL driver by comparing the track followed by GL car and matching it to requests he/she processed during the day, that is not the prime function of server. Such a random check would be done on all drivers few times in a year to find out if they are up to the task they are supposed to do.

• Just extend this idea to more number of busy cities in the world and imagine what effect it can have!