The Bus of the Future Will Catch You

Note to Self

WNYC Studios

Self-improvement, Tech, Note, Npr, Education, Public, Wnyc, Manoush, York, To, New, Self, Radio, Business, Technology, Relationships, City, Society & Culture, Zomorodi, Newtechcity

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2014

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt George runs a new bus company that doesn't own buses. And he's making some big promises.

He says his company Bridj is going to "rethink the way mass transportation works for the first time, really, since 1897 when the first subway tracks were laid" in Boston, where Bridj just launched its first data-driven routes. George thinks that by crunching enough mobility data he can figure out where people need to go in almost real-time, and create or alter bus routes so there's always one when you need it, and they all go pretty much express. As for the not owning buses thing. Bridj will make the schedules and routes then contract actual bus companies for the wheels, much like the way Uber and other taxi apps use private drivers but don't employ any of them directly.

If George is right, his technology could fundamentally change the way people get around cities with something between a taxi shuttle and the subway. It could also become an elitist alternative public transit for the smartphone crowd.

To find out — and to test out a few other transpo tech promises — New Tech City producer Alex Goldmark takes a road trip from New York to Boston using every possible means of high-tech-enhanced transportation and trip planning tools he could possibly find. Listen to this episode to hear how the future of transportation rolls... and lurches, and crashes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello friend, this is an episode of Note to Self, but from when we used to be called New Text City.
0:06.6	Same good content, just the old name. Enjoy.
0:10.0	Alex?
0:12.0	I think you need to face it.
0:15.6	You're kind of a geek. You're a transportation geek.
0:18.6	Yeah, you could say that. Before the show, my job was reporting and producing for WNYC's transportation nation.
0:25.2	Listeners, Alex Goldmark, the senior producer of New Text City, is a big transportation nerd.
0:31.2	I mean, when taxi-hailing apps first came onto the scene, he was the guy who went out and surveyed dormant about it for NPR.
0:40.2	If I told you that you could hail a cab with your smartphone app, would you use it?
0:44.2	Wouldn't work. It's faster than just going out there and hailing a cab.
0:48.2	One of those e-hailing apps is now valued at more than $17 billion.
0:52.2	So, sorry, dormant, wrong.
0:55.2	And when Hurricane Sandy hit New York, you formed your own bike gang to monitor flooded subway stations.
1:01.2	And Alex, you did a story on what you called the Hurricane Bike Boone.
1:05.2	Can I ask you a question while we ride?
1:07.2	You ride often or is this a special scenario?
1:10.2	Lots of non-private car kind of transportation coverage.
1:14.2	Okay, so recently you came to me all excited and optimistic about this new kind of bus service that was launching in Boston.
1:21.2	You said, we really needed to cover it and I just could not get excited about it.
1:25.2	But you told me I would care.
1:27.2	Right, so I think that the same way that new companies have used smartphone apps to totally remake how taxi markets work,
1:34.2	I think that this company that started up last weekend in Boston, it's claiming that it can do the same thing for buses.
	...

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