Entrepreneurs in the microtransit space talk about “first-mile/last-mile transit” all the time.
They talk about it because it sounds good. (Not in a rolls-off-the-tongue-nicely sort of way, because it’s a clunky term – let’s just refer to it as “first mile” here.) It’s a code phrase for sustainable, meaning their service plugs into existing core networks, like trains or buses, that carry many people efficiently.
And sustainability is definitely good, which is pretty undeniable. What is less good is the uncertainty as to whether these entrepreneurs are truly walking the first-mile talk.
When I asked four such entrepreneurs what percentage of rides their services provide are “first mile” or to transit, 150 people could hear a pin drop in the silence of a session Tuesday at the Association for Commuter Transportation’s Emerging Mobility Summit in Columbus, Ohio.
It seems this is an important question. And if microtransit companies can’t answer readily where their customers, at least in aggregate, are traveling, it should make us very worried about their motivations.
Marc Klein, the director of microtransit government partnerships for Ford’s Chariot, said transit agencies and municipalities need to tell the company the best places to go. But when asked exactly where Chariot is going – and particularly if those destinations are transit drop-offs – he was silent.
Eleanor Joseph, director of business development at Via, noted that, in Austin, the company has helped Capital Metro upgrade its dial-a-ride system with an on-demand service called Pickup that uses agency-owned, agency-operated vehicles.
Perhaps to be fair to the four panelists who didn’t have an answer for the percentage of their first-mile rides – representatives of DoubleMap and May Mobility were also on stage – we’re still pretty early in this whole new world of mobility options.
But the time to provide some answers – and real-world results – for these kinds of programs needs to happen soon. Whether microtransit is going to cannibalize transit or complement it is important information for planners, city leaders, businesses, and the public to know.
And while there aren’t good numbers or percentages, there are some promising signs. “Cities like Los Angeles are already tweaking some bus routes to prep its circulator lines for an on-demand future,” noted writer Alissa Walker in Curbed recently.
According to the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times:
The LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has set an ambitious goal to triple the number of commuters who regularly use public transit at a time when subway and bus ridership is actually moving in the other direction.
Metro is looking for a private-sector partner to design a micro-transit service for the agency. The idea is to combine the best of Uber and Lyft, which offer fast, convenient, on-demand services, with public transit, which has a mission of providing subsidized, handicap-accessible transportation to all communities, including people who do not have a smartphone or credit card.
Tech companies are also depending on good relations between microtransit startups and traditional core transit. Products like TransLoc and Luum that help make rider demand a highly scientific art should be seeing transit locations as relatively active hubs on their mobility “heat maps” of where people are coming and going.
At least 24 transit agencies are expected to launch microtransit in 2018, and hopefully that’s a conservative estimate. Many are likely to fail, like the now-defunct Bridj did in Kansas City. But in some ways, with the data and technology now behind the entire people-moving and routing processes, there’s kind of no reason to fail anymore.
There’s no reason to build “the bridge to nowhere” anymore.
Via is succeeding with 1.5 million rides per month. And it has recently replaced the one bus line of transit that existed in Arlington, Texas with its more flexible microtransit service. If that’s a way to make transit better or to get people to core transit, then let’s see it happen. And let’s see some numbers from the results.