##Project
Get people together to create a calculator for the length of a trip using the concept of generalized speed from Ivan Illich.
##Social speed?
###Short explanation
The generalized speed (also called social speed) is a speed that takes into account the time spent to 'afford' the trip.
Read more or see some examples below.
###Examples:
If Sharon can use her car to ride 200kms from A to B in 4 hours, her speed is 50km/h. But taking into account the price of gas, tolls, parking and other expenses from car ownership this trip costs 40usd. If her hourly salary is 20usd/hour then it means Sharon has to spend 2 hours working to pay this trip. The generalized speed takes into account both the duration of the trip and the time spent to pay the trip. The generalized speed of Sharon is thus: 200km / (4h trip duration + 2h time spent to pay for the trip) = 33km/h
If Sharon prefers to use the train that takes 4 and a half hours for the same distance. Her speed is slower at 44km/h but the ticket only costs 10usd. She only has to work 30 minutes to afford the ticket. Her generalized speed with the train is consequently: 200km / (4.5h trip duration + 30min time spent to pay for the trip) = 40km/h
In this example one can see that although the trip itself is shorter with the car, taking the train is faster for Sharon if she thinks about the total amount of time she dedicates to transportation (which include earning money to finance the trip).
Another stunning example comes when applying this concept to a society as a whole. In the USA, the yearly budget of the auto industry is 1,653.7 billion, the cost of road accidents alone is around a trillion dollars and there is a labor force of 157 million. With an average salary of 25$ per hour, we can assume that the workforce is dedicating ((1,653,700,000,000+1,000,000,000,000)/(157,000,000*25)) = 676 hours each to 'afford cars'.
On yearly average people spend 540 hours in their car and travel 21687km. Their social speed is 21687km / (540 trip duration + 676 time spent to pay for the trip) = 18km/h
The generalized speed of American society with a car in this example is estimated here at 18km/h, which is the average speed of a bicycle. Including other costs related to car such as pollution, climate change and oil conflicts would decrease this generalized speed even lower to that of a pedestrian (6km/h).
##I need your help!
I'm new to github and don't know much about web programming. That's why any help is welcome for this project. Let's work together!
###Why you should help?
This calculator aims to contribute to decrease the numbers of cars on this planet by helping people realize that the car is actually one of the slowest transportation when generalized time is considered.
Each car that disappears means less chances for kids to develop eczema or asthma, less chances of being killed on the public space, less public money spending, less impact on climate change, less resources consumed and more social interactions.. Taking part in that will just make you a hero basically. :)
###Goals
-The first step for the calculator is to place it on the French carfree website (carfree.fr). The calculator must be free and if it's technically possible open source. The site carfree.fr uses wordpress.
###Work done so far
I've found caldera forms which is a free plugin for wordpress. I could make a nice first calculator draft (sorry it's in French):
I made this form graphically with Caldera, the corresponding .json code for the calculator is in this repository (carfree-generalized-speed-calculator-export.json). Please note that I don't even know what is .json and this project doesn't have to .json especialy.
This basic picture shows that input fields are:
+Type of transportation
-Walking
-Cycling
-Train
-Car
-Rideshare
-Hitchhiking
-..
+Hourly salary
+Distance and time taken for the trip
+Cost of the transportation per kilometer
The outputs are the generalized time and speed for the trip with the formula:
Generalized-time = trip-time + (trip-distance * cost-per-km) / hourly-salary
Generalized-speed = trip-distance / Generalized-time
###I need help for the following
####How to collaborate?
I could install wordpress and the caldera plugin locally on my PC using bitnami. I exported the .json file from caldera and put it in this repository (carfree-generalized-speed-calculator-export.json). Please tell me if I should use some special way to make it easy to collaborate, it's all new for me!
####Map integration
I would like the user to be able to input a place of departure and destination from google maps or something equivalent. Then the time and distance for the trip are automatically calculated and fed as input for the form. Of course the trip distance and time need to depend on the transportation chosen.
I saw that in this project you can enter a start and end point with autocompletion from google map.
In this other project, the trip distance and time is calculated.
Is it possible to mix all this with the form to have the destination picker, the map and the calculator all on the same page?
####Contact me!
Through github or by email : H D K W T W at google's mail provider..