The northeast what? Section of your town? I have lived in the Northeast US my whole life and never heard of a bus-on-demand besides the vans for disabled people. I can't imagine it is common or cost-effective in any way.
Flex service has been in Rhode Island for a while. It's also in Cape Cod. Pretty sure Worcester has it. Know they have it up around Amherst. I think you just have to look around.
Except for, you know, all of the drunk people out there who aren't going to wait until the buses start running again and will probably drive drunk without an alternative.
The alternatives are busses, taxis, designated drivers, and being responsible. It's not like bars are open until 4am anyways, except in NYC where transit does run 24/7.
And I guess nobody in your world works 3rd shift or at a 24 hour establishment...
Yeah. It's called the 11 to 7 shift for a reason. And there are always taxis.
And that's the beauty of a coop, if they are chronic offenders they will lose their membership. I am in a carsharing service right now that will revoke your membership for damaging the car or driving recklessly often.
Okay. So now it's even more restrictive than a bus. You can be punished by the co-op.
Sure it would, but 20 people sharing 1 car means cars are cheap to replace when the cost is spread out.
Not if they put 20 times the wear on the car...
I read a report that the average car is idle 95% of its life
Yeah. No doubt. That means you're doing 20 times the mileage. If the average person drives 15,000 miles per year, now you're talking 300,000 miles per year to keep it running 100% of the time. Which means the car's dead in a year.
though people would probably have to share or wait a bit at peak times.
Fine. Can also take busses or wait for taxis.
Of course this will be mitigated quite a bit because each trip will be much shorter when there are 1/20th the number of cars on the road.
Assuming people would just up and give up their cars and trucks for this scheme...which most of us wouldn't.
That depends entirely on the price and number of users. If a self driving car costs 30K and only 6 people in a given area sign up, that's still just 5K apiece spread out over the life of the car plus 1/6 of gas and maintenance.
You have to pay for the gas you use. Assuming you travel the same distance either way, unless you're carpooling (which you could do right now), gas will cost you exactly what it already does.
A new Toyota Camry without self-driving capability can run you $30,000 with a few options. Right now self-driving cars cost about $300,000 for the LIDAR, GPS systems, software, etc. Even if you cut that by 90% over time, that's still $30,000 for the self-driving system. So I think $30,000 is overly optimistic for a price-point.
But let's say it's $60,000. So let's say that's $10k per person over the life plus 1/6 of gas and maintenance. And let's say everyone goes the average of 15,000 miles per year. Now you're putting 90,000 miles on that car every year. Within 2 years, it might be dead. Within 3 years, it probably will be at 270,000 miles.
So $10,000 spread over 3 years is what? $280 per month before gas and maintenance? And the thing will have to be in the shop every 4 months for regular maintenance minimum. Plus you have to wait some times. And odds are those 6 people have to go to work during rush hour. And the car can't go 2 places at once. So now they have to stagger their schedules.
Seems like a big headache when you can do a $200/mo lease with no maintenance and drive around in a new Toyota Camry right now. Throw in another $50 per month and you can have a bus pass too, so sometimes you don't have to drive, and other times you can go where you want when you want. Save the other $30 per month for a cab ride or two when you're drunk. And you still make out without the maintenance payments.
I just don't see how it adds up. And this is all assuming you can cut costs by 90%...