Slugging

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A "slug line" of passengers waiting for rides Slug Line.gif
A "slug line" of passengers waiting for rides

Slugging, [1] also known as casual carpooling and flexible carpooling, [2] is the practice of forming ad hoc, informal carpools for purposes of commuting, essentially a variation of hitchhiking. A driver picks up these non-paying passengers (known as "slugs" or "sluggers") at key locations, as having these additional passengers means that the driver can qualify to use an HOV lane or not be subject to road pricing. Slugging is common mostly in the U.S., [3] specifically in major cities such as the Washington metropolitan area, San Francisco, Houston.

Contents

The essence of the systems is the use of a meeting-place to form carpools, without any advance contact between the participants. For people wishing to carpool, going to a meeting place is a very low-effort method for getting into a carpool, compared with any other system that involves contacting potential riders or drivers in advance, and arranging the trip. The key is that other people are also coming to the meeting place, and there need to be sufficient people traveling from any one meeting-place to the common destination so that the waiting time to form a carpool is acceptable.

Slug lines are generally organized and maintained by volunteers, although there has been government involvement in organization as well.

Background

In order to relieve traffic volume during the morning and evening rush hours, high-occupancy vehicle lanes that require more than one person per automobile were introduced in many major American cities to encourage carpooling and greater use of public transport, first appearing in the Washington Metropolitan Area in 1975. The failure of the new lanes to relieve congestion, and frustration over failures of public-transport systems and high fuel prices, led to the creation in the 1970s of "slugging", a form of hitchhiking between strangers that is beneficial to both parties, as drivers and passengers are able to use the HOV lane for a quicker trip. While passengers are able to travel for free, or cheaper than via other modes of travel, and HOV drivers sometimes pay no tolls, "slugs are, above all, motivated by time saved, not money pocketed". Concern for the environment is not their primary motivation.

In the Washington area, slugging occurs on Interstates 95, 66 and 395 between Washington and Northern Virginia. [4] [5] Slugging is said to work well in Washington because it is a "unique mix of a small city center, clogged highway arteries, and expensive toll roads". [6]

In the San Francisco Bay Area, casual carpooling occurs on Interstate 80 between the East Bay and San Francisco. Usage was slow to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic. [7] Several smartphone apps have been developed. [8]

Slugging also occurs in Houston, [9] [10] and in Pittsburgh. [11]

Slugging is shown to be effective in reducing vehicle travel distance as a form of ridesharing. [12]

Slugging is more used during morning commutes than evening commutes. The most common mode that slugging replaces is the transit bus. [13]

David D. Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom proposed a similar system (which he referred to as "jitney transit") in the 1970s. However, his plan assumed that passengers would be expected to pay for their transit, and that security measures such as electronic identification cards (recording the identity of both driver and passenger in a database readily available to police, in the event one or both parties disappeared) would be needed in order for people to feel safe. [14]

Although slugging is informal, ad hoc, and free, in 30 years no violence or crime was reported from Washington D.C. slugging until October 2010, when former Sergeant Major of the Army Gene McKinney struck one of his passengers with his car after they threatened to report his reckless driving to the police. [15]

Etymology

The term slug (used as both a noun and a verb) came from bus drivers who had to determine if the people waiting at the stop were genuine bus passengers or merely people wanting a free lift, in the same way that they look out for fake coins—or "slugs"—being thrown into the fare-collection box. [16] [3]

General practices

In practice, slugging involves the creation of free, unofficial ad hoc carpool networks, often with published routes and pick-up and drop-off locations. In the morning, sluggers gather at local businesses and at government-run locations such as park and ride-like facilities or bus stops and subway stations with lines of sluggers. Drivers pull up to the queue for the route they will follow and either display a sign or call out the designated drop-off point they are willing to drive to and how many passengers they can take; in the Washington area the Pentagon —the largest place of employment in the United States, with 25,000 workers—is a popular destination. Enough riders fill the car and the driver departs. In the evening, the routes reverse. [16] [17] [18]

Many unofficial rules of etiquette exist, and websites allow sluggers to post warnings about those who break them. These include: [19]

Other examples

In France, spontaneous carpool lines have been established in rural municipalities by Ecov using electronic signs and smartphone apps to alert drivers of waiting riders. [20]

In Jakarta, "car jockeys" had been paid by commuters to ride into the center of the city to permit the use of high-occupancy vehicle lanes [21] until the lanes were eliminated in 2017. [22]

From 1979 to 1980, Marin County, California, implemented a flexible carpooling system using as meeting points several major intersections near bus stops. [23]

In 2009, the Washington State Legislature set aside $400,000 for a pilot project to test meeting-place based carpooling in the SR 520 corridor of Seattle incorporating the Avego smartphone ridematching system. [24]

In 2010, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority considered a flexible carpooling proposal by Trip Convergence Ltd. [25]

In India, it is illegal for drivers to randomly pick up commuters from the public roads and there is evidence that such drivers have been fined.

In the Polish People's Republic, hitchhiking was officially supported by the government (and formalized), and in Cuba, government vehicles are obligated to take hitchhikers, but these systems have nothing to do with high-occupancy lanes.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High-occupancy vehicle lane</span> Restricted traffic lane

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The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) is a major public transportation agency based in Houston, Texas, United States. It operates bus, light rail, bus rapid transit, HOV and HOT lanes, and paratransit service in the city as well as most of Harris County. It also operates bus service to two cities in Fort Bend County, and to Conroe in Montgomery County. The Metro headquarters are in the Lee P. Brown Administration Building in Downtown Houston. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 77,189,800, or about 240,200 per weekday as of the first quarter of 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carpool</span> Sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car

Carpooling is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car, and prevents the need for others to have to drive to a location themselves. Carpooling is considered a Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rush hour</span> Time of day with peak traffic congestion

A rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: once in the morning and once in the afternoon or evening, the times during which most people commute. The term is often used for a period of peak congestion that may last for more than one hour.

Vanpools or vanpooling is an element of the transit system that allow groups of people to share the ride similar to a carpool, but on a larger scale with concurrent savings in fuel and vehicle operating costs and thus usually a lower cost to the rider. Vanpools have a lower operating and capital cost than most transit vehicles in the United States, but due to their relatively low capacity, vanpools often require subsidies comparable to conventional bus service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harbor Transitway</span> Roadway in Interstate Highway 110 in Los Angeles County, California

The Harbor Transitway is a 10.3-mile (16.6 km) shared-use express bus corridor and high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes running in the median of Interstate 110 between Downtown Los Angeles and the Harbor Gateway Transit Center in Gardena, California. Buses also make intermediate stops at 37th Street/USC, Slauson, Manchester, Harbor Freeway, and Rosecrans stations. The facility opened for two-person carpools on June 26, 1996, for buses on August 1, 1996 and was converted to HOT lanes as part of the Metro ExpressLanes project on November 10, 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">El Monte Busway</span> Los Angeles Metro Busway

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Texas T</span>

A Texas T, also called a T-ramp, is a T-shaped highway ramp that combines entrance and exit ramps into a single structure that allows entrance and exit to the left (inside) lanes of an expressway. It is intended to avoid traffic congestion caused by large numbers of high-occupancy vehicles crossing several lanes near exits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transportation in Washington, D.C.</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public transportation in the United States</span> Publicly financed transit services in the country

The United States is serviced by a wide array of public transportation, including various forms of bus, rail, ferry, and sometimes, airline services. Most established public transit systems are located in central, urban areas where there is enough density and public demand to require public transportation. In more auto-centric suburban localities, public transit is normally, but not always, less frequent and less common. Most public transit services in the United States are either national, regional/commuter, or local, depending on the type of service. Sometimes "public transportation" in the United States is an umbrella term used synonymously with "alternative transportation", meaning any form of mobility that excludes driving alone by automobile. This can sometimes include carpooling, vanpooling, on-demand mobility, infrastructure that is oriented toward bicycles, and paratransit service. There is public transit service in most US cities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High-occupancy toll lane</span> Traffic lane or roadway on which high-occupancy vehicles are exempt from tolls

A high-occupancy toll lane is a type of traffic lane or roadway that is available to high-occupancy vehicles and other exempt vehicles without charge; other vehicles are required to pay a variable fee that is adjusted in response to demand. Unlike toll roads, drivers have an option to use general purpose lanes, on which a fee is not charged. Express toll lanes, which are less common, operate along similar lines, but do not exempt high-occupancy vehicles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shared transport</span> Demand-driven vehicle-sharing arrangement

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Virginia HOT lanes refers to seven separate projects in the U.S. state of Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zimride</span> American carpool program

Zimride by Enterprise Holdings was an American carpool program that matched inter-city drivers and passengers through social networking services. It was offered to universities and businesses as a matchmaking service. The company was founded in May 2007. After the launch of the Lyft app in May 2012 for intra-city rides, the Lyft app rapidly grew and became the focus of the company. Zimride officially renamed as Lyft in May 2013, and the Zimride service was sold to Enterprise Holdings in July 2013. As of July 2013, the service had over 350,000 users and had partnerships with Facebook and Zipcar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carma</span> Irish transportation technology company

Carma Technology Corporation is a real-time transportation technology company headquartered in Cork, Ireland. Its flagship product, Carma Carpooling, matches users with nearby commuters and enables them to share the cost of driving. Carma also has offices in San Francisco, California and Austin, Texas.

A car jockey, also known as traffic jockey and known in Indonesian as joki three-in-one, was someone in Indonesia who had resorted to informal employment to bypass the gridlock that grips Indonesia's largest cities, especially Greater Jakarta. They were paid by drivers to ride on vehicles, so that those vehicles would be qualified to use high-occupancy vehicle lane. Like atappers and ojeks, it was one method Indonesians have become accustomed to in their daily commuting struggle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ridesharing company</span> Online vehicle for hire service

A ridesharing company, ride-hailing service, is a company that, via websites and mobile apps, matches passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire that, unlike taxis, cannot legally be hailed from the street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Managed lane</span>

A managed lane is a type of highway lane that is operated with a management scheme, such as lane use restrictions or variable tolling, to optimize traffic flow, vehicle throughput, or both. Definitions and goals vary among transport agencies, but managed lanes are generally implemented to achieve an improved operational condition on a highway, such as improving traffic speed and throughput, reducing air pollution, and improving safety. Types of managed lanes include high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, high-occupancy toll lanes, express toll lanes, reversible lanes, and bus lanes. Most managed lane facilities are located in the United States and Canada, although HOV and bus lanes can be found in many other countries; outside of the US and Canada, many countries use active traffic management that manage all lanes of a highway.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to public transport:

References

  1. ↑ "What are Sluglines". Sluglines.
  2. ↑ "Flexible Carpooling: A Compendium". National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
  3. 1 2 "Car-sharing more common abroad". BBC News . March 20, 2006.
  4. ↑ "Map of Slugging Sites in Washington DC". slug-lines.com.
  5. ↑ Quain, John R. (November 24, 2010). "New York Has Worst Traffic in U.S. and Canada, Report Says". The New York Times .
  6. ↑ Scherr, Elana (June 10, 2023). "In Washington, D.C.'s Secret Carpool Cabal, It's a Daily Slug Fest". Car and Driver .
  7. ↑ Savidge, Nico (November 20, 2022). "Casual Carpool was a Bay Area tradition before COVID. Can it make a comeback?". Berkeleyside .
  8. ↑ Brekke, Dan (October 19, 2023). "What Happened to Casual Carpool?". KQED-FM .
  9. ↑ Falkenberg, Lisa (July 2, 2007). "Slugs avoid the slow lane". Houston Chronicle .
  10. ↑ Burris, Mark W.; Justin R., Winn (2006). "Slugging in Houston—Casual Carpool Passenger Characteristics". Journal of Public Transportation. 9 (5): 23–40. doi: 10.5038/2375-0901.9.5.2 .
  11. ↑ "Slugs and Bodysnatchers". slug-lines.com. June 1, 1997.
  12. ↑ Ma, Shuo; Wolfson, Ouri (November 5, 2013). "Analysis and Evaluation of the Slugging Form of Ridesharing; Proceedings of the 21st ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems" (PDF).
  13. ↑ Burris, Mark W.; Winn, Justin R. (2006). "Slugging in Houston—Casual Carpool Passenger Characteristics" (PDF). Journal of Public Transportation. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 13, 2014.
  14. ↑ Friedman, David D. (1989). "99 and 44/100ths Percent Built". The Machinery of Freedom . pp.  75–77. ISBN   0-8126-9068-0.
  15. ↑ Augenstein, Neal (December 11, 2011). "Sergeant Major Gets Weekend in Jail for Slugging Incident". WTOP-FM .
  16. 1 2 Clarke, Rachel (October 15, 2003). "'Slugging' to avoid Washington slog". BBC News .
  17. ↑ "Slugging saves DC/VA Drivers and Riders Time and Money". July 14, 2011.
  18. ↑ LeBlanc, David E. (1999). Slugging: The Commuting Alternative for Washington, DC. East Point, GA: Forel Pub. ISBN   0-9673211-0-7.
  19. ↑ "Slugging etiquette is just common sense!". sluglines.com.
  20. ↑ "Reducing commuter traffic in Val de Saône with carpooling (France)". eltis.org. June 13, 2019.
  21. ↑ "Jakarta's jockeys in demand as gridlock drives city to despair]". The Sydney Morning Herald . February 4, 2012.
  22. ↑ McFarland, Matt (July 6, 2017). "A city scraps its HOV lanes. Disaster ensues". CNN .
  23. ↑ Minett, Paul (June 2013). "Flexible Carpooling to Transit Stations" (PDF). National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
  24. ↑ "Carpool Pilot Project Interim Report to the Legislature" (PDF). Washington State Department of Transportation. February 2011.
  25. ↑ Horrell, Rhiannon (18 August 2010). "Easing congestion and saving money". Stuff.co.nz .

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