No.970397 PREPRINT

Seattle Smart Traveler (SST) is a world wide web (WWW) application designed to test the concept of "dynamic" rideshare matching. SST collects spatial and temporal trip information using a series of WWW pages, performs a match using SQL specifications to a database engine, and supports both the standard phone-based contact methodology as well as two new, unique email-based contact methodologies. (http://sst.its.washington.edu/sst ) KEYWORDS: carpool, dynamic ridematch, rideshare, world wide web, database INTRODUCTION Seattle Smart Traveler (SST) is a Federal Highway Administration field operational test (FOT) which is presently underway. SST is designed to test the concept of "dynamic" rideshare matching. We define dynamic ridesharing as "the sharing of a single trip by two or more individuals, without regard to any previous history among the individuals involved." (This is similar to the definition of real-time ridesharing in [2 ].) Additionally, SST defines a "trip" as "a single inst..