Ok, here’s one I can just explain I don’t need a whole lot of research or sketches. Traffic! How would I get rid of traffic? Here’s how, staggered scheduling. What do I mean by that? Well to put it simply in my city everyone goes to work at 8am and leaves at 5pm. Well that’s just stupid, and we do that Monday through Friday every week all year long. Last time I checked we were a “Global Economy” trying to run business 24/7 to service every country in the world. Not every company services the world, but last time I checked this country itself runs almost 24/7. Not only do we run 24/7, but we have more than 6 different time zones when you include Hawaii and Alaska. Because of the internet some 83% of all companies with more than 500 employees now service 2 or more time zones. That’s staggering, think about that, a company that bases their revenue off of internet sales and marketing services usually some 12 different time zones. Considering all of those factors why would a company like MBNA based here in Dallas still have the majority of its employees come in at 8am and leave at 5pm? Who is MBNA servicing? Are they servicing people that need them most at those times? That’s debatable, most of their customers are private individuals who also work 8am to 5pm Mon-Fri.

So here’s my suggestion quit with the 8a to 5p Mon-Fri for everyone thing already. There’s really no reason Sally and John should be driving down the same highway everyday seeing each other in the same traffic. If I were Sally’s boss I’d ask Sally to come in at 9am work until 6:30 and her days would be Tuesday through Friday. She’d get a 30 minute lunch and she’d end up with 36 hours per week. If she needs a full 40 she can come in at 8:30a or leave at 7p. I’d ask John to come in at 7:30a and leave at 5p his days would be Monday through Thursday again if he needs a full 40 he can leave at 5:30p or come in at 7a. What does this do? Lets say we currently have 500 people coming in daily at 8a and leaving at 5p. Now lets move this company to a 3tier staggered schedule. We ask the employees to choose when they come in and give them a choice of schedules. 1^st choice 7:30a to 5p Mon-Thurs, 2^nd choice 8:30a to 6p Mon-Fri with Wednesday off, 3^rd choice 9a to 6:30p Tues-Fri. Those that need 40 hours versus 36 have an option of working longer in the 4 day work week or working 4 hours from home on their weekly day off. If the company needs the employees to work together on projects they can schedule meetings on Tuesday and Thursday. They can make all their employees available during off hours during the week by forwarding emails on their off days to Cellular phones as text messages or for some phones that support email the full email. While the initial transition isn’t as easy as a flick of a switch the rewards for the change would be well worth the transitional costs.

Let’s say that the majority of the employees pick the Mon-Thurs schedule, 230 of them for example. 100 choose the Mon-Fri with Wednesday off and the remaining 170 choose the Tues-Fri schedule. Now what does this do to change the traffic on the roads? Well instantly it reduces the number of employees we have on the road Mon-Thurs at 8a-5p by more than half. It reduces the number of employees we have on the road on Fridays by 230, on Wednesday we have 100 less people on the road, and Monday we reduce the number by 170. Let’s not forget that not only have we reduced the number of people on the road on these days, the staggered times have reduced the number of people on the road all at the same time. If 40% of companies in a given Metropolitan area were to institute a staggered schedule system the amount of vehicles on the road at the same time would be reduced by a staggering amount (a little fun pun there). I don’t think I even have to do the math for people to understand the amazing amount of reduction to vehicles on the road at the same time.

So what traffic is reduced, you’re not going to see companies change the way they do things because where is the incentive for them? Well think about it this way, by instituting a 4 day staggered schedule over our traditional 5 day non staggered schedule we reduce the number vehicles on the road at the same time by 29% if 40% of companies institute the program. Well with overall traffic reduced by 29% and overall Daily traffic reduced by 18% overall emissions would be reduced by a staggering amount. A study was done by the EPA that stated that if we could reduce traffic by 15% per year we could reduce overall emissions by 25%! Imagine if we reduced traffic by 29%! We removed 18% of all vehicles on the road! So why does the company care about emissions or pollution? Well they might not, but I can imagine that the EPA would. Politicians would, the general public would enjoy the cleaner air.

Another incentive is with less overall traffic and fewer slowdowns on the road the roads themselves would need far less maintenance. Thus local governments have the propensity to save millions per year on maintenance and expansion. These Millions could be passed back to the companies that are participating in the staggered schedule program in the form of tax incentives. So now the companies have some incentive to initiate the program. The EPA would also benefit from the program thus they could also provide some federal tax incentive. Lets not forget that we’ll have happier employees who have more time to themselves with an extra day off and fewer working hours, not to mention far less time spent driving and far less money spent on gas.

That touches on another point, traffic effects gas mileage. The EPA estimates that city traffic reduces gas mileage by an average of 46%. 46%!! Wow imagine if we could just get half of that number back on 15% of the cars on the road. I bet we’d need a whole lot less foreign oil another big win for everyone.

So there you have it, if you want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, reduce pollution, reduce time spent on the road, reduce the number of accidents on the road (I know I didn’t touch base here, but it’s common sense, thus reducing insurance premiums), reduce the costs of gasoline, and make most of America a happier place to work, write your congressman and tell them about this idea. If we can have some responsible politicians institute this program we could really change the world for the better. Well at least our country anyway.

Well this is it my 1st post! Lets see if I keep it up!

Well here it is, my 1st blog. Something I should have done a long time ago. This will be my chopping block. You'll get to hear about all my crazy ideas, and if you like them, you can use them, I don't care, go for it, free of charge! Why? Cause my ideas will hopefully make the world a better place. All I ask is if you do use them, tell people where you got the idea from. I'll include rudimentary design sketches and models to express some of my more mechanical theories. For just general ideas I'll include some references and links to support my findings. Hopefully we can have some discussions on as to why you think my craziness will or won't work.

Anyway, Enjoy!