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Given the proliferation of microtransit services trying to match drivers and passengers, you might think they had ride-sharing and carpooling all figured out. But the recent demise of Leap Transit in San Francisco—to say nothing of the other transportation start-ups that have failed without a media whimper—reminds us that even in a big city it’s not easy to fill empty vehicle seats. And in the suburbs, it’s downright mathematically impossible.
Or just about, anyway, according to a provocative new thought-experiment by Steve Raney, principal at a smart mobility consultancy called Cities21. In a working paper, the former Silicon Valley tech product manager crunched the numbers on ride-sharing in the Palo Alto area and found the odds of matching drivers with passengers long, to say the least. Raney calls it the “Suburban Ridematch Needle in the Haystack Problem.”
“I wanted to gently inject some reality into this,” he tells CityLab.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday November 18 2015, @06:39AM
I'm from the Government, I'm here to help!
What he doesn't understand is that parking is already provided at market price.
Work destinations that already provide parking in their own garages or lots pay for those lots, maintenance, taxes, etc. Land withing a city is very expensive. Parking is provided as a benefit to employees as an alternative to paying higher wages to attract employees. The companies buy in
bulk, and use it to offset higher wages.
His Idea of Market price is some artificially inflated price, sufficiently painful to induce travel by bus or train, imposed by fiat.
At the same time, things like Google's private buses come under fire for no reason other than jealousy.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.