Along
with the intention of supplying New
Zealanders
with the everyday goods they need to live in
harmony with the environment... the vision
behind
setting up ecostore was to create a viable
and sustainable way of fundraising for projects
for the environment.
This dream has now become reality with ecostore's
growing success allowing them to channel a percentage
of their profits via the fairground foundation
into positive initiatives to help protect and
restore our environment.
The fairground foundation is a not-for-profit
project, which acts as a trust to administer
funds and resources for approved environmental
projects and community initiatives.
Contact
fairground foundation...
Media Release – May 31, 2004
Web-based car pooling soon to take off in
Auckland
An Auckland group – carpool.co.nz –
is pushing for a major internet-based carpool
scheme which they say could begin eases the
city’s road traffic congestion in 12 months’
time.
Carpool.co.nz has been working on software
criteria for two years to reduce the number
of single occupancy cars on the roads with a
web-based car pooling system.
They plan to set up online communities for
each carpool groups. Software has already been
designed so carpoolers only have to live somewhere
on the route of fellow carpoolers for the system
to work. Commuters in Car pools will use the
lane reserved for public transport.
``Congestion is nationally recognised for
its negative effect on Auckland’s economy,
not to mention the environmental, health and
social costs,’’ carpool.co.nz spokesman
Malcolm Rands said today.
``Rising oil prices are a concern too. We
have a major internet carpooling proposal that
can change all that.’’
Over $13billion is projected to be spent on
roads in the next 15 years to ease gridlocks
and improve Auckland’s congested traffic
problems. Currently in the greater Auckland
region there are an estimated 543,000 trips
to work a day.
``This cost is too high and we feel an Auckland-wide
car pooling system would have a positive impact
on reducing congestion and cost very little,’’
Rands said.
``Carpool.co.nz plan not to build industrial-age
highways, but information-age superhighways
to decrease traffic congestion. Carpooling has
been around for many years, but until the recent
arrival of browser-based technology, a large
community of carpoolers has not been possible.’’
The Onewa Road carpooling lane has improved
congestion by 40 percent even without technology
support for people joining a carpool.
Carpool.co.nz has strategic links to Auckland
University’s school of engineering science,
a recognised centre for software excellence.
The Auckland Regional Council (ARC) is encouraging
employers to use web based car-pooling schemes
to reduce air pollution and road congestion.
Carpool .co.nz have met with key groups in the
public and private sectors. The ARC, in partnership
with the Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority
(EECA), has received funding from Infrastructure
Auckland to develop software for carpooling.
The first grant money is targeted towards
making it easier for large organisations to
get their staff or students into carpools.
``We want to make sure this ground work is
done properly so all our added features can
be added on as more funding becomes available.
This first project could be running within 12
months,’’ Rands said.
Carpool.co.nz believes the system should be
run by a user owned trust, much in the same
way as the AA.
The group plans to run a pilot at a satellite
site such as a university campus to trial the
effectiveness of carpooling across a highly
distributed environment. The second stage would
be to set up a carpooling system across the
whole Auckland community.
Malcolm Rands is founder of ecostore and is
based in Auckland
