Would you be more likely to take a city bus if you could schedule it on your phone? That’s the thinking behind a new public-private transit partnership in Kansas City, Mo.
Launched in March as a one-year pilot, the service known by the mouthful moniker Ride KC: Bridj allows Kansas Citians to request pickups from vans that offer more flexible stops than traditional bus routes. The average ride costs only $1.50, the standard city bus fare.
The collaboration between the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) and transportation startup Bridj, along with carmaker Ford, is the first partnership of its kind involving a public transit agency and a ride-sharing company in the United States. For now, the vans just run during weekday rush hours in select neighborhoods. But because the Bridj app determines the location of “pop-up stops” based on user inputs, the hope is that the app can help make transportation more convenient for a wide range of city residents.
Bridj, Uber, Lyft, and others already offer vanpool services in various cities around the United States, and some municipalities, including Dallas and Atlanta, encourage residents to use them as links between traditional public transit and their homes and workplaces. But Ride KC: Bridj is groundbreaking in its level of cross-sector partnership. Ford supplied the service’s fleet of ten 14-seat vans, and KCATA union employees drive them. Bridj designed the app and compiled information about traffic patterns and cell phone data during rush hour to help choose high-traffic neighborhoods for the pilot.
“We view it as another option between the car and the bus,” says Matt George, CEO of Boston-based Bridj. According to George, the vans’ more efficient routes and their smaller size make up for the environmental effect of putting more vehicles on the road. “A big local bus that is running empty 18 hours a day at about a mile to the gallon is not tremendously efficient,” George says. “We have a more efficient vehicle that is optimizing where it is going only when it’s got user demand.”
Kansas City initially approached Bridj about the partnership in hopes of offering more flexible options for public transportation in neighborhoods underserved by traditional, fixed routes, often due to insufficient numbers of potential users. “Our union got on board, recognizing that something is changing in this industry and we want to be a part of it,” says Jameson Auten, chief of KCATA’s Regional Service Delivery and Innovation Division.
Just three months into the one-year pilot, the program added more neighborhoods to its area of service. But only about 300 riders actually used it in the pilot’s first quarter. Although the app had received more than 5,000 service requests by the end of June, not all translated into rides, as many occurred outside of the areas and hours in which the vans operated. The city has hired a marketing firm to help raise more awareness of the service.
In one sense, Ride KC: Bridj’s potential user base is large, Auten says: 80 percent of KCATA riders have a smartphone. On the other hand, a mere 1 percent of Kansas City residents use public transportation to get to work, and Kansas City has among the most freeway lane miles per capita of any city in the United States.
“We live in a city that is very car-centric,” says Sheila Styron, a member of Transit Action Network, which advocates for public transit in Kansas City. Sprawl and short commute times for individual drivers may mean fewer people interested in services like Ride KC: Bridj.
For those who do want to use public transit, though, Bridj may offer a more vital service than it would in a denser urban area where fixed routes cover space more effectively. According to Brookings Institution estimates before Ride KC: Bridj’s launch, only 18 percent of jobs in the Kansas City area are accessible by public transit in less than 90 minutes. “We have a lot of gaps in our transportation system, and Bridj could potentially fill those gaps,” Styron says.
Styron, who is blind, has downloaded the Bridj app herself but has yet to use it. She says that although newcomers might prefer door-to-door service, she is willing to travel to a pop-up stop with her seeing-eye dog. But she adds that the initiative will need to increase the number of vans, expand its area of service, and raise greater awareness before the model can be assessed.
Auten thinks the program could have impact well beyond Kansas City. “If we can prove that concept in Kansas City, in the middle of America,” he says, “then the concept should be able to work just about anywhere.”
Read more stories by Jamie Stark.