Cooreea - Exploring new ways to share transport costs

Cooreea Ltd is a New Zealand company based in Wanaka, Otago. We are a small team committed to exploring the possibilities of shared transport for social and environmental benefit.
On the 15th October 2008 Cooreea quietly launched the first version of the core software which drives their Internet service. This version allows users to list transport requirements, whether it is people seeking to travel themselves or send physical objects, as well as their planned journeys. Listings are then matched based on their geographical data and users can negotiate with each other to find a transport partner.
The concept has evolved from our experiences with similar, less formal, systems in travelling forums and chat rooms overseas, and the way transport is often - by necessity - more communal in poorer countries. Many countries have as a central part of their green agenda a desire to increase the efficiency of their transport fleet and sharing this resource is a recognised direction in which to seek solutions.
Our system can be described as a natural evolution of hitch hiking or ride share. Using the social possibilities of the Internet, Cooreea is seeking to increase the safety and reliability of sharing transport to a point where it becomes a consideration for anybody seeking to travel or send physical things inside New Zealand.
Cooreea allows users to build trust in a feedback based system and also manages the transaction for people asking for a share of travel costs. Any money that exchanges hands is kept in trust until the journey is finished and the participants confirm that they are happy with the agreement, thereby increasing the security of the transaction.
The service could be particularly useful for people with odd things they need transported. For instance; an oily chainsaw or bicycle purchased on Trademe is often difficult to send by a traditional courier service, but is easily carried in the boot of one of the many cars travelling on our roads everyday.
While sharing transport has obvious environmental positives we also see it is a way for individuals in communities to reconnect with each other and to make travelling in New Zealand a more enjoyable experience.
Further services are planned in the near future including carpooling and the ability for commercial transport providers to list their services.
One of the directors of the company is a German national and Cooreea has an office in Heidelberg, Germany. Cooreea has plans to also launch the service outside of New Zealand in the future.
http://www.cooreea.co.nz