Is the largest city in America without a public bus transit system laying the groundwork for an autonomous, on-demand shuttle network? Arlington, Texas, a city of 400k in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, is reportedly planning on spending $9M per year to serve its entire 99 square miles with 70 shuttles operated by Via.
Via’s on-demand shuttles are an alternative to traditional buses. Unlike buses, the Via shuttles pick up and drop off riders within 2 blocks of the rider’s location, making their solution much more accessible than traditional fixed-route bus service. The price to the rider is about $3 to $5 per ride.
Three times, the citizens voted down tax proposals to fund a traditional bus system. In its initial trial, which covered 65% of Arlington, Via provided 113k rides and the cost from Via to the city was $1.7M. As a simple metric, this translates into a subsidy of approximately $15.04/ride.
Compared to the Home of Dial-a-Ride #
Compare this to Santa Clara County’s VTA, which serves a population of 1.9M, covers 363 square miles of incorporated cities.¹ With approximately 4,000+ people per square mile, Arlington is about 75% the density of the incorporated portions of this California county which also happens to be the epicenter of Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley’s public transportation system, VTA, had a fleet of 469 buses in 2019 (page 40, PDF).² VTA’s pre-pandemic 2020-2021 biennial budget suggested approximately 26.3M bus rides (page 46 PDF). Fares account for about 7% of the budget (page 47). VTA’s subsidy per ride is approximately $16.60 to $20.60 per ride.³
Granted, at $3 to $5 per ride, the Arlington/Via cost to the rider is a bit more than $1-$2.50 per ride for VTA. Still, even if Arlington increased its per-ride subsidy to match the VTA fare (say $2.50 per ride), the subsidy would be less than VTA, while providing a higher quality experience (on-demand, closer to origination/destination).
[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”auto” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]The idea of an on-demand transit system providing door-to-door transport goes back to at least the mid-1970s, as Silicon Valley’s pioneered such a service, Dial-a-ride. Dial-a-ride used the old school telephone to beckon a mini-bus directly to one’s residence. Dial-a-ride shuttered after 5.5 months due to an “inadequate customer communication system, starting the entire system at once, an inadequate number of vehicles, and taxicab buyout.”[/dropshadowbox]
The Foundation for Even Better Mobility & Built Environment #
Long-term, subsidies might not be required if the operating costs drop to 1/5 of today’s cost, as predicted by Local Motors’ Jay Rogers at the February 11th, 2021 Smart Driving Car Summit. In the SmartDrivingCar interview below, May Mobility’s Edwin Olson suggests that in addition to affordability, on-demand transit provides a higher-quality experience than traditional buses. He indicates that this is borne out by May Mobility’s Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
This bodes well for the City of Arlington, as Olson states in the same interview that May Mobility is working with Via to bring their on-demand technology/service to that city’s streets. In their experience, community acceptance and trust take time. The value is the service and how it helps people get around better and improve the way they live; autonomy is secondary.
[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”auto” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Added 3/23/21 – The City of Arlington announced that the addition of five autonomous vehicles with safety drivers will be added as part of a test serving its downtown and University of Texas Arlington campus. Four will be hybrid vehicles, while one will be electric with special loading for wheelchairs. RAPID is the name of the service. May Mobility and Via are supplying the technology and service. The trial is anticipated to last until March 2022. Pictures from the launch event are found on Tom Bamonte’s Twitter account. [/dropshadowbox]
May Mobility’s vision is even bigger than providing better mobility for individuality. They want to use shared autonomous transit to transform cities and make them better. Olson states that their early work with cities gives May Mobility an advantage in that they have a good understanding of the city’s limitations.
Boards of transit agencies would be well-served to closely look at the Arlington approach, as it seems to provide an on-ramp to the emerging driverless evolution.
Footnotes #
¹Although the county is 1,312 square miles, the incorporated portion is 363 square miles. The 14 smaller municipalities cover 181 square miles, almost matching the largest city by area and population, San Jose, with its 182 square miles.
² What’s interesting is that it is estimated that 334 and 210 buses would have been needed during peak commute and average mid-day demands in 1974 (PDF). This was at a time when the population was approximately 1.15M or approximately 60% of the current population. Scaling this to today’s population would mean 558 buses, compared to VTA’s current total of 469 buses. Whether the 19% increase in vehicle count and associated bus drivers would surely be offset by the lower cost of capital for right-size vehicles (e.g. instead of 40-person buses, 4-to-8 passenger vehicles) is a question for further exploration. The 5 to 10 minute wait time and removal of bus stop would clearly be a quality advantage over today’s service.
[Added 3/22/21 – VTA has expanded what might be considered a dial-a-ride service for seniors in certain parts of West San Jose, Saratoga, Campbell, Monte Sereno, Cupertino, and Morgan Hill. Pricing is based on income and not net assets and is open to those 65+. Interestingly, these are some of the wealthiest areas in the valley. It would be interesting to understand why they chose these particular ZIP codes.
It would also be interesting to see how this program compares, both in quality and cost, to ITN America’s program which has a seniors-helping-seniors approach. In many ways, it seems to have many of the limitations of the early dial-a-ride programs (passenger must reserve rides, via telephone, 2 days in advance, companions have to apply to ride with). It may be inexpensive for short distances ($0.90) but can get expensive ($18) for longer distances. Plus, it is limited by geography to the zip codes it serves, except for a few exceptions (VA, Sunnyvale train station).]
³ This is based on $441M revenue (page 56) and 26.5M rides. It doesn’t include depreciation on capital costs, which it should as the biennial 2020/2021 budget appears to be $220M ($110M per year) for capital improvements, repairs, and maintenance. This could add up to $4+ per ride, as it is a real cost. Granted, some of this budget might be for one-time capital expenditures, but there is no reason to think that capital expenditures will be lower in 2022/2023 unless their funding sources are cut.
It’s important to note, that Arlington doesn’t have capital costs with its approach. Their expense is variable, although there could be administrative costs not accounted for in the Gov Tech article.
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