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less than the equivalent cost of a car journey or the overall cost of conventional public transport
14
. The payment
process takes place automatically using registered accounts and without the need for issuing tickets or
exchanging cash to save time
15
Example of COAST from a driver perspective
Consider a person who has driven to work and has just finished working at the office in the late afternoon. He is
tired and wishes to travel home quickly, but the roads are still congested. On arriving at his COAST enabled
car, the on-board vehicle computer immediately signals to the LCC that a trip is to be commenced.
Once again the likely details of the journey are anticipated from the time, location and records of previous
journeys, so there is no need to input any information unless there is a change from the routine travel procedure.
The LCC immediately attempts to find a route where the driver can pick up other travellers. 2 options are
provided; a longer route in which 3 passengers require a journey, or a more modest diversion to pick up 2
passengers. He chooses to ignore both options since he is tired and wishes to get home as quickly as possible,
so he commences on a single occupant trip.
On the way home the driver meets a long line of traffic which may delay him a further 10 minutes. However,
the LCC is continually tracking his vehicle locating its position
16
and continually updating him with new travel
requests. He notices one option requiring only a small diversion off his present route.
Passenger 1 person registered male TD 9267 8341
Estimated time of arrival 6.15 pm 16/07/2014
Estimated time of arrival with diversion and traffic priority 6.10pm 16/07/2014
Anticipated time saved on predicted journey 5 mins
Cost £ 6.80
Cost with diversion and traffic priority £3.80
Saving £3.00
He selects this option and moves into the parallel lane reserved for COAST activated vehicles which is
relatively free of traffic allowing him to bypass the queue. Despite the diversion to pick up a passenger, the
overall journey is slightly quicker than that if he undertook a single occupant journey, moreover, he got paid for
the journey at the same time.
These two examples demonstrate several advantages of using a COAST for the passengers and drivers.
COAST could also be implemented as part of a road use/congestion-charging scheme where individual drivers
might be dissuaded from driving individually due to the high cost. A suitable level of road use pricing would
prevent the extra traffic filling the vacated road space and ensure that obstructions from single occupied, multi-
seat vehicles don’t block the other traffic. Road charging at this level is presently difficult to implement
politically due to the absence of a viable public transport alternative, COAST provides this. A flexible public
transport system such as COAST also bridges the main weak point of using longer distance public transport
systems, that of getting to and from train or coach stations without delays due to driving, parking and walking.
There are many telecommunication and logistical variants on the above examples. Booking in advance rather
than on demand would allow the potential for more frequent matching and efficient routing, especially if there
were some flexibility in the time of departure. With some limited compromises on the time of departure, and
aggregation of bookings, the COAST system could also be used over longer distances. For example, a car could
pick several people up outside their door in one town and drop them off outside their specific destinations in
another town perhaps hundreds of kilometres away. Yet another possibility is to integrate COAST with a postal
and/or supermarket delivery system were light freight such as parcels could be delivered in conjunction with
passengers, allowing even more comprehensive use and coverage and thereby reducing waiting times.
14 This price includes the subsidy for conventional public transport. Obviously COAST would aim to operate without subsidy.
15 However, the details of the journey and costs would be electronically recorded and could be accessed or printed out if necessary.
16 the user would have the option of disconnecting the system when it is not required
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