Can Ride Apps Really Solve America's Traffic Woes?

For 20 years she's been studying what transport gurus call shared mobility, dissecting factors that make it successful, like shorter wait times. Though you might think choosing how to get to work is simple, Shaheen will tell you that especially in urban areas, there are countless factors in play, from the time of day you're on the move to whether you own a smartphone. And more than any of the tech executives giving speeches lately about how we all should rethink our relationship to our cars, she knows just how revolutionary that could be. Walking the halls of one of the nation's oldest departments dedicated to transportation research, at the University of California, Berkeley, the engineering professor wonders how our lives would have turned out if the Model T had been marketed as something to be shared, not owned home by home. Would our vehicles still be idle an estimated 95% of the time?