Ride Sharing for Your Packages

I’m not going to lie. The Canada Post strike has put a serious damper on holiday sales from our on-line gift shop. In some cases, I have been able to obtain delivery services through private courier companies from our rural location at a reasonable price. But for most orders, the cost is outrageous and the majority of packages are sitting in limbo on my desk until the strike is over. Canada Post has been struggling for years. It’s at "death's door" and won't survive if it doesn't dramatically transform its business, a professor who has studied the Crown corporation is warning as the postal workers' national strike drags on. Letter mail in Canada has dropped significantly in recent years. Some suggest Canada Post would need to pivot from its core business of letter mail and focus on delivering parcels. They need to be more competitive too by adding deliveries on weekends. But what if they don’t survive? What if Canada Post crumbles just like Greyhound? What if small businesses and rural residents are left in the lurch again? 

Could Canada Post’s demise be an opportunity for a new kind of mail service? Ride sharing schemes such as Kootenay RideShare, Uber and Lyft have managed to fill a growing need for alternative transportation when owning a car is not an option. There are even car share schemes like Evo, Modo and Kootenay Car Share making it possible to drive yourself without the expense of car ownership. But, what about transporting stuff? What about a ride share scheme for your parcels? Turns out, there are already innovators around the world doing exactly that. 

GoShare is a service that's similar to Uber but for moving goods instead of people. Users download an application on a device that allows them to hire delivery professionals with trucks or vans to help with loading, delivering, and unloading parcels and other items. GoShare's business model is similar to Uber's, with independent drivers who own their own vehicles for delivery. Just like Uber or Lyft, GoShare requires contract drivers to be licensed, insured, and have background checks complete before they can become part of the delivery network. GoShare operates all over the USA. How fantastic would this be in Canada? One advantage to the GoShare delivery model is that items do not need to be packaged. It offers way more flexibility. You could ship a bicycle, for example, intact. No box is required and over sized items are delivered at more affordable prices. 

Roadie is another option. “Someone is always leaving everywhere”: that’s the idea behind Roadie, a peer-to-peer package delivery service launched last year by Marc Gorlin. There are something like 250 million vehicles on the road every day, Gorlin said, so he decided to take advantage of this resource by allowing people to help their neighbors out by driving things to places they’re already going.” 

Roadie has established a nationwide network in the USA enabling individuals or small businesses to use this one system for all their deliveries. The Roadie platform offers fast, affordable delivery in major cities and all the smaller cities and rural towns in between. With a network of drivers in all 50 U.S. states, shippers can enjoy same-day service over more than a 100 km radius that’s seven times larger than traditional couriers. Users can reach more customers and grow businesses more cost effectively with Roadie’s crowdsourced geographic reach. 

Of course, both Roadie and GoShare are proprietary and require users to pay fees for the service of matching deliveries with drivers. These companies earn a lot of profit without owning any cars. Although drivers earn an income for making the deliveries, they are responsible for owning, maintaining and fueling their own vehicles. What if there was a system for parcel delivery modelled after Kootenay RideShare where users share the cost and benefits free from fees for profit? With a scheme like this, individuals and small businesses could have the option to deliver goods and be a part of the sharing economy. Unlike Uber or Airbnb which are extractive, Kootenay RideShare was designed to be completely free to use for drivers and passengers and serves to reduce carbon emissions by facilitating shared transportation.

Kootenay Car Share operates under the same cooperative model. A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise." Kootenay Car Share was established to foster car sharing as an environmentally responsible transportation option. A parcel delivery scheme could be developed using the same model or perhaps even working in tandem. 

I have heard rumors that Kootenay Car Share and Kootenay RideShare have been exploring ways to develop a user friendly app that integrates both car sharing and ride sharing. What if shipping was added to the mix? Commercial shipping has already been pivoting to other delivery schemes. It's time for Canada Post to try something new. The way they operate is no longer working.

As a crown corporation, Canada Post provides an essential public service. Sadly, their business model appears to be increasingly less relevant every year. Perhaps a crowd sharing app similar to Roadie could be developed and implemented by Canada Post. Or maybe a Canadian version of Roadie could be implemented here. Their model certainly does appear to meet the needs of small businesses located in more rural areas. 

In the meantime, we could already start experimenting with this model and build community while we’re doing it. Kootenay residents are already offering rides to people travelling to other cities such as Kelowna, Vancouver and Calgary. We could add rides for parcels to the mix. Reach out to your friends, family and neighbours, ask where they are going and if there is room in their vehicle for your package.