Three Revolutions by Daniel Sperling

Author:Daniel Sperling
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: TRA001000 Transportation / Automotive / General, ARC010000 Architecture / Urban & Land Use Planning, TEC009090 Technology & Engineering / Automotive
Publisher: Island Press

Going forward, the public transportation industry—and local leaders—will have to assess the ability of ridehailing companies to be good partners and provide reliable service, adequate capacity, and stable pricing.

Partnering with Microtransit Providers

Another partnership opportunity—beyond Lyft, Uber, and other ridehailing services that use personally owned cars and SUVs—is microtransit companies that operate vans and small buses. Microtransit encompasses a broad mix of demand-responsive curb-to-curb services. Many private providers have emerged in recent years, though with mixed success.

The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) partnered with a private company, Bridj, to provide on-demand microbus service as a way to extend the capabilities of Kansas City’s existing public transportation system.27 Launched in March 2016, this partnership was the first of its kind, bringing together a major urban transit agency with an automotive manufacturer and a private, technology-based shared mobility company. The program utilized Ford Transit vans for the service and allowed travelers to hail the vans through the Bridj mobile app, which then crowdsourced the ride hails and created a virtual meeting point within the designated service area. Fares for the service were subsidized so that they were no more than the standard bus fare.

It failed. Only 597 rides were given in the first six months of the pilot project, a tiny fraction of the 200 riders per day projected at the program’s outset.28 Staff at the government transportation agency said poor communication to the public was the principal explanation for poor ridership. An independent survey of riders found that residents didn’t find the service particularly useful.29 Nearly half of those who requested a ride used the service only once, despite introductory promotions. Of the people who downloaded the Bridj app but never used it, three quarters indicated this was because it didn’t serve locations where they wanted to go. A third also responded that it didn’t operate when they needed it. The KCATA on-demand pilot program ended, and Bridj closed its doors in May 2017, as noted in chapter 3. The concept of serving more-dispersed travelers with small on-demand buses is compelling, but in this case, the execution was lacking.

LA Metro, the transit provider for the Los Angeles area, is determined to learn from those mistakes. It is proposing to offer microtransit services to complement its rail and bus offerings. The agency cites many advantages of microtransit: flexibility to reroute in real time, scalability to meet demand as it changes throughout the day and week, ability to serve a greater variety of origins and destinations, lower cost to serve first- and last-mile connections (for their rail lines), and faster trip times for many travelers.30 It notes that in much of the sprawling Los Angeles region, this new microtransit model might be able to more effectively serve travel demand than fixed-route services and could help boost ridership on fixed routes by not only increasing trips by existing users but also attracting new users. The agency could increase the frequency of service on core routes and reduce or eliminate fixed-route service on “low-performing” routes.

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