A novel trust based algorithm for carpooling transportation systems

The increasing of cars in our planet and the consequent congestion of urban and intercity traffic, opens new challenges in ITS (Intelligent Transportation System). They can refer to several aspects. This paper analyses Carpooling, a technique of private cars sharing diffused in United Kingdom, United States and Italy to mention some. It helps to handle several troubles, such as the release of CO2 in the air, noise pollution, and excessive fuel consumption. Carpooling is considered an efficient technique, even if some relevant aspects should be improved. First of all, to have real time notifications about lift possibilities. In addition, a mechanism to increase trust should be introduced: people hardly offer a lift to strangers. This work shows a trust-based algorithm to encourage people interested to carpooling as alternative way to move themselves inside or outside cities. The proposed algorithm, that assigns priority to users with positive feedbacks through a fuzzy logic scheme, has the specific goal to increase the level of trust, decreasing significantly the possibility that, during a trip, unpleasant episodes occur.