It is the last day of the MobileActive08 conference today and this morning Pieter Henning of the Kwa-Zulu Natal Department of Transport (KZN DoT), presented the interesting possibility of using mobile phones to form lift clubs that will provide transport opportunities for those commuters who do not have cars.

In his session titled Proving Mobile Service Applications to Communities, Henning proposed that such sure lifts, as he calls them, will enable under-provisioned people to participate in arranging suitable and safe transportation to their preferred places of work.

He added that through sure lifts, commuters will be matched with partners that can aid them to safely, efficiently and easily to, arrange transport to their chosen destination or nearest taxi rank, bus route or train station. He pointed out that one of the major objectives of sure lifts, run through mobile phones, is to alleviate transport problems for all.

Describing how the project will work, he said that both a commuter and a driver will upload lift requests or offers either via a phone, call centre, SMS or on a website. After the computer matches similar requests, an SMS will be sent to both parties, with basic contact information. According to Henning, sure lifts provide a private lift request service, and empower the public to negotiate with partners about how they wish to share a lift service arrangement on their own terms. He feels sure lifts are ideal for families without cars and physically challenged people.

Some of the concerns raised against this proposal were liability issues, safety, and legal issues related to running such a service. “Who is going to carry the liability, should there be issues of unsafety between a commuter and a driver?” one of the participants in this discussion asked. Others asked if it is not illegal for a driver to accept payment from the people he/she is lifting without any permission to run a transport business.

However, Henning explained in the past there was a need for such drivers to acquire a professional driver permit, which is no longer the case now. Should they be successful, sure lifts would come as one solution to the problem that South Africans face of congested roads, as it will encourage transport sharing instead of each person using their own cars. It could also help in meeting transport needs for the upcoming 2010 soccer world cup, which will take place in South Africa.

According to Henning, sure lifts will be beneficial to the DoT’s administration of effective transport, the transport business sector and to the SANTACO licensed taxi operators. As mobile phones are rapidly becoming a popular method of empowering society through communication, there is still the issue of the cost of airtime, which remains a barrier to this easy and fast information sharing method.