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Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

55 points by r0h1n 12y ago

escherize 12y ago
Hopefully more busses, any busses, will cut down on traffic in SF.
sebgr 12y ago
duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9219672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9219672
- dang 12y ago
  It doesn't count as a duplicate (for burying purposes) until the story has had significant attention. However, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 did have.
AWolfAtTheDoor 12y ago
It seems like San Francisco is one of the few places where you can have a company completely fail, only to see it revamp its product in a way that it will probably completely fail again. While I can't speak for San Francisco's bus system, everything about this product video screams to me that the solution that is being provided here does not actually solve a problem other than "I am white, privileged, and want to ride on a fancy looking bus where I can buy a Vita Coco. I also want to pay as much as $6 per ride, which is egregiously more expensive than something that amounts to little more than public transit needs to be." This whole thing is basically the epitome of the tech bubble and offers little to nothing of real value.
- cpursley 12y ago
  Yeah, they should drop all the frills. And those seats without backs looks terribly uncomfortable if not unsafe.
  - solve 12y ago
    Take away the bus-style seats, and it's now more like a tram/trolly/subway/european busses, from the rider's perspective. This open layout is vastly better than the traditional US bus layout. Feels safer, less trapped. This is the right direction to be going, as public transportation in most of the rest of the world has already proven long ago.
    - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
      >Take away the seats It must be wonderful to be so young and healthy and not have any issues that keep you from standing 60+ minutes on a moving and uneven platform.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  You might also want to look at the discussion of their TOS from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 Basically, the TOS disclaims pretty much everything claimed by their marketing material (ie. they are not a transportation company, don't claim to be one, don't make any guarantees or promises about what they do, etc; also, you are dependent on the bus driver to actually transport you because the driver is the 'third party' you are actually contracting with and they won't refund you if they fail to transport you [which they most definitely won't, because they aren't a transport company]).
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    The circular logic looks somewhat familiar. This isn't a subsidiary of M & M Enterprises, by any chance?
  - jusben1369 12y ago
    They're in a super competitive market (Other public transport, Lyft, Uber etc) If they don't provide a valuable reliable service they'll pay the ultimate price. Public transportation companies may or may not have a better TOS but the question is what happens to them if they don't hit their TOS? Nothing because they're taxpayer funded/subsidized.
- sgrove 12y ago
  An alternative comment (that would likely be more useful and spark more interesting conversation) might focus on listing the ways in which you see public transportation in SF as broken, and thoughts on how they might be sustainably (and profitably) fixed.
  - jfb 12y ago
    It's not clear to me that profitability is a useful metric in thinking about how to fix public transportation, unless one is running a transportation startup.
    - msandford 12y ago
      Well it's useful in the sense that if an alternative transportation company as opposed to a city enterprise is able to turn a profit, that would indicate something. I think it would indicate that the city isn't making enough of an effort on the mass transit side of things. Overall it would be great if people could start up private bus lines that they believe are underserved which the city would then later take over. If you structure it so that the city paid a royalty to the entity which established the line for a few years, they could probably do a fair amount of good. Now, how would you prevent this from turning into a tollway that's only going to charge for 20 years but 50 years later it's still for-pay? By making the city pay an external entity rather than keeping the revenue. They'll keep their word -- at least when it comes to paying the bus startup -- very rigidly if it's an outflow. How would you ensure that they then lower the price once the royalty is done? That's harder. I guess at least the scam would be more transparent that way.
      - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
        >If you structure it so that the city paid a royalty to the entity which established the line for a few years, they could probably do a fair amount of good. This is very much how the UK's rail franchising system fails to work. Rail is complex because you have obvious economies of scale when you have the same entity managing rolling stock, tracks, other resources, and R&D. The UK's rail franchising is the worst of all possible worlds. Economies of scale are impossible because separate companies own the rolling stock, run the rolling stock, and maintain the track. And no R&D happens at all now. Worse, companies regularly scam the gov by collecting subsidies while they can and giving up franchises early when they're expected to start repaying some of their profits. So this is not necessarily a good model. >I think it would indicate that the city isn't making enough of an effort on the mass transit side of things. Why should public transport be profitable? It provides a valuable economic service, in that it moves employees to and from work. Demanding that it should make a profit is like demanding that pedestrian walkways or the freeway system should make a profit. Infrastructure is a public and corporate good. You can certainly debate who benefits from it the most, and who should pay for it on the basis of the economic value of those benefits. You can also debate if perhaps it's not as innovative as it could be - something which is often true of both public and private transport systems. But there's no obvious non-ideological need for it to be run on a for-profit basis.
- ceallen 12y ago
  People who drop an extra 4 dollars so their morning commute is reliable and moderately pleasant are now white privileged elite. I'd hate to hear what you think of people who drive cars. Wanting to be at work on time without allotting an extra 30 minutes for public transit shenanigans is hardly the epitome of privilege.
  - AWolfAtTheDoor 12y ago
    What aspect of a fancy bus that drives in normal traffic like any other bus (or car, assuming there are not bus-only lanes) makes it any more capable of getting a person to their destination sooner? Addendum: this is a private company that technically speaking does not have to adhere to any schedule and isn't liable for various things (according to the TOS posted in this tree), so if anything you're more likely to be on the wrong end of things compared to an organized public transit system.
    - krschultz 12y ago
      You are assuming that there is no better way to define the schedules, no better way to communicate bus location, and no better way to start buses on time than what currently exists. There are two sides to on schedule performance - what the bus does, and what the schedule says. You are probably right that the bus can't move any faster just because it is private. On the other hand, I bet a tech savvy company can do vastly better at predicting what the actual bus schedule will be as well as communicating any deviations from the schedule in real time.
      - creshal 12y ago
        > On the other hand, I bet a tech savvy company can do vastly better at predicting what the actual bus schedule will be It's mainly traffic issues, or a single wheelchair/baby carriage clogging up the exits and requiring more time than anticipated. It's hard to make useful predictions for that. > as well as communicating any deviations from the schedule in real time. The municipal public transits in many European cities already have real-time schedule updates (and replacements) delivered via smart phone apps and digital signage posts at the bus stops. Big IT (I think Siemens, e.g.) has been offering and deploying solutions for this for years now.
- dataker 12y ago
  From a technical perspective, it is gathering data and training models that eventually would make it more affordable and efficient. Also, The "white privileged elite" seema to act as early adopters, willing to pay for the extra bucks. Eventually, the technology gets cheaper and accessible to more users.
- ahallock 12y ago
  Your comment is hyperbolic and race baiting. That this new service solves a problem or adds anything of value is up to the consumer. Maybe there are certain amenities that people want and will pay extra for. There's nothing wrong with that. In your world, it sounds like we should only use the bare minimum and everything else is waste and privilege.
  - AWolfAtTheDoor 12y ago
    Your statement to an extent is correct, but at the same time it also supports the fact that those who have the ability to pay more for something are not privileged to be able to. I would love to see the public transit systems improved, busses included. The issue here is that the privatized system and frills that the Leap busses have, which for all intents and purposes are mostly unnecessary, scream upper class while coming across as if the goal is to improve the entire public transit system, when in reality it isn't anywhere near the case.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      while coming across as if the goal is to improve the entire public transit system Where? In their website, all the copy seems direct at the potential customer; I saw nothing about the goal being an improvement to the entire transit system.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - AWolfAtTheDoor 12y ago
    Anyone in the United States can get an iPhone 5S (and perhaps even a 6) for free somewhere on contract if they look around. If they really want to spend next to nothing, second hand 5 models are not much more expensive than most budget Android phones and will get far more mileage. It's not an issue of Android versus iPhone here.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  > "I am white, privileged, and want to ride on a fancy looking bus where I can buy a Vita Coco. Uh, lets not place the race card here. In all major US cities we have 100+ years of political corruption, union protectionism, bad planning, kick the can mentality, etc that have led to a shitty level of public services. A non-government competitor can help to keep the government honest as people see how much better things can be. As a Chicagoan, my advice is, don't become like Chicago. We ran full tilt towards the "don't challenge the government, we know best" approach which just led to the corrupt machine politics that is driving the city into bankruptcy. I would love to take a non-CTA bus to work. I can't see how anyone could possibly do worse than the CTA bus system. >Some critics have raised worries that these bus startups, like Chariot and competitor Leap Transit, will cause the broader public to disinvest in the city’s municipal transit system. This is a feature, not a bug. I mean, should universities and hospitals give up on their private bus system because it "threatens" the public one? If the public system is so terrible, continuing to prop it up makes no sense. Personally, the idea that we need to build this ultra-egalitarian society is highly hypocritical, especially on an entrepreneurial forum like HN. Yeah, I'm willing to pay to not ride with crackheads and criminals. There's nothing wrong with that, the same way I bought a house far away from crackheads and criminals.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    > I would love to take a non-CTA bus to work. I can't see how anyone could possibly do worse than the CTA bus system. I don't know where you are in Chicago, but tooling around Streeterville/Gold Coast/Lincoln Park, I always found the CTA buses clean and punctual. I don't think CTA is a great example of union protectionism or bad planning in Chicago (I'd level those at CPS/CPD). If you can't see how anyone could do worse than CTA, try riding the public transit in the Rust-belt east coast cities (Philly, Baltimore, Wilmington). It can get so much worse.
    - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
      >Streeterville/Gold Coast/Lincoln Park To be fair, those are the three wealthiest parts of the city, so there's incentive to make them work properly. I think when you leave the high-income bubble you'll see the CTA isn't like that normally. >Philly, Baltimore, Wilmington Those aren't remotely tier-1 cities with the budget we have. Its not a fair comparison. Not to mention, in places like Baltimore, driving and parking to work are feasible and economic options. In Chicago that's not going to work out.
- jusben1369 12y ago
  I'll admit the video is a little cringe worthy with hipsters and Vita Coco. But your criticisms are unfair and unfounded. Airplanes sell a range of seating options that have a price to comfort ratio. Train travellers have always had multiple cabins and pricing choices. Car services range from cheap taxis to black cars to take you to the airport. So there's no reason bus transportation can't offer an alternative to the current offering that's more expensive and therefore has better amenities. In general I'm completely bearish though on these new types of public transportation options. We're about 10 - 15 years away from self driving electric cars that could fit 2 - 4 or 8 people based on design that will optimize route choices and pick you up from your door and drop you at the door you want to go whether that's 3 miles away or intercity. And the economics are already there ($6 probably gets you a long way is a Lyft rideshare right now) Leap could pivot to support that new model but I think super large vehicles on fixed routes is going the way of the dinosaur.
  - peterwwillis 12y ago
    The examples you give are examples of privilege which benefit the wealthy [who happen to be mostly white] and the only thing that's affected is "rider comfort", which is not real value when you consider the business is a transportation company and not a day spa. There's no reason they can't offer an alternative. But the reason they can and do offer an alternative is pretentious.
    - hsod 12y ago
      "rider comfort" is not real value? What if busses had no seats at all? What if they were 100 degrees? What if they didn't have shock absorbers? What if they smelled bad (worse)? Rider comfort IS real value. You've just anchored your perspective at the current level and decided that anything above that is "pretentious" which is itself kind of pretentious. Also, it seems tautological that luxury services benefit the wealthy. What's the alternative? Socialism?
      - peterwwillis 12y ago
        Sometimes, rider comfort determines value. Such as on an airplane, where a couple inches can determine if your neck and back are screwed up for hours. Or on a bus in Dubai, where air conditioning may determine if you look like you just stepped out of a lake of perspiration. In this case, the Leap is doing what someone else already alluded to: giving you a Lexus version of a bus. It's not like it's providing air conditioning where it didn't exist, or needed room where it didn't exist [in fact, it does the opposite]. Added value is when you get more for your money. Like when you get a free bag of peanuts with your ride, or your ride costs less, or introduces air conditioning. Adding luxury changes the value, but while also increasing the cost. And things introduced purely as a luxury tend to be pretentious. As it's designed now, there are less seats, higher prices, and increases the amount of traffic on the roads. If this service became popular they'd either have to raise the price (ala Uber/Lyft surges) or increase the number of buses, which forces you to choose between increased cost or increased traffic, neither of which improves transportation. I wasn't trying to suggest we shouldn't have luxury items. Just that when it comes to an alternative bus [transportation means], what we don't need is a luxury bus. We need a more efficient bus. Less seats, higher prices and a potential increase in traffic does not seem more efficient to me. -- Let's be honest. This service is intended to cater to people who are "too classy" for the bus, but too cheap for an expensive car service. It's not getting them there faster, and definitely not cheaper, but it is giving them fancy drinks and a space to open up their laptops away from the poor, unwashed masses. It's the upper-middle-class bus service. "Tired of looking at poor people? Need a place to USB charge your phone? Like the idea of going to work in a mobile coffee shop? Try Leap!" Now that's pretentious.
- patcon 12y ago
  > "San Francisco faces some very real challenges. Taxis are impossible to hail. Private car services are extremely expensive at peak times," I'll admit that this line actually made me angry.
untog 12y ago
I'll be interested to see how this works from afar in New York. To my mind it's likely to just make for more traffic and not take a sizable number of cars off the road, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
- krschultz 12y ago
  Why would you think it would just make more traffic and not take cars off the road? A bus takes up the space of 3-4 cars. If there are more than 4 people on the bus, it is increasing the capacity of the road. Surely there are some negative effects because busses stop & take longer to turn, but I also don't think their business plan involves driving busses with only 4 people on them.
  - a2kadet 12y ago
    That's assuming the bus would only be converting drivers and not other forms of commuters. I have a fifteen minute walk to work. If there was a convenient bus that cut that in half, I would use it. I used to ride the subway to work. That took about 40 minutes. I would definitely consider using a bus instead if the circumstances were right.
  - whatok 12y ago
    untog was mentioning NYC. Majority of people commuting in that I know already catch public transportation into the city. I can't imagine this working very well for transportation within Manhattan but I could be wrong.
    - cauterized 12y ago
      Manhattan's buses are already extremely frequent on popular routes (double-length buses scheduled every 2-3 min during rush hour on routes that aren't redundant to subway service, and even on a few that are -- and still packed) and limited by traffic more than anything. AFAICT most people who drive to work in Manhattan on a regular basis do so because they live far enough out in the boroughs or suburbs that getting to the subway/commuter rail is a PITA. There is a large contingent in residential areas of Manhattan above 59th St. that take cabs to work -- especially on the East Side where the subway is often too crowded to get on. Although the 2nd Ave subway (if it opens as projected in 2017) will probably make the subway a more palatable option, I could see something like this being an alternative for some of those riders -- cabs can be difficult to find in the morning, and this would be far less expensive.
nsnick 12y ago
I predict there will be protesting.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
xienze 12y ago
A bus for people who think public transportation is great aside from all those poor black people.
TarpitCarnivore 12y ago
Can someone please explain the benefit of having Wifi on a bus? I know for some the bus ride may be long, especially if you're going from the SoMA to the Outer Sunset or Richmond. But in most cases I've used MUNI there it's 10 minute bus ride, even going from the Haight to Soma. There is an argument to be made for getting work done, but how much work care you possibly going to get done on a 10-15 minute bus ride?
- icebraining 12y ago
  The reason is (probably) simply avoiding having bored passengers. You can cringe and say that people ought to be able to withstand a 15 minute ride without needing a dopamine hit, but if you're making a business out of it, providing Wifi is a cheap way of increasing customer happiness and loyalty.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
Leap buses are not also currently accessible to wheelchair-using or disabled passengers, but Kirchhoff plans to add that in future buses. They redesigned the entire bus interior from the ground up and didn't include this? Surely if you are going to rebuild your fleet before you start, it is insane not to do the work then. Doing it in the future will be far more expensive and is a difficult decision to make, given you will have to pull a presumably profitable bus from a route for each revamp. (edited for spelling)
- dagw 12y ago
  You make it sound like they completely forgot about disabled passengers, when the reality is almost certainly that they intentionally excluded them because they are a pain to deal with (slow getting on and off, take up more space than an able bodied passenger etc.)
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    The article presents it as though it was merely an unfortunate oversight. I assumed incompetence rather than maliciousness for my comment, purely out of a sudden fit of politeness. I completely agree however that assuming pure idiocy rather than malignancy is stretching probability more than slightly in this case, given we are talking about highly experienced profiteers.
    - michaelt 12y ago
      The article says they "bought old NABI buses and refurbished them" Replacing seats doesn't need structural changes to the bus - but if you've brought a coach that has six steps and a sharp right turn as you board, there's just no way to adapt them.
      - lotsofmangos 12y ago
        There is a very wide range of choices if looking to buy an old bus. If someone is planning a transport company, and they buy a coach with six steps and a sharp right, then belatedly realise 'oh-noes, I can't refit for wheelchairs', and cannot fix this by getting a different bus, despite having lots of investment and only one route, then I start to disbelieve the narrative if I also think that any of the executives can tie their own shoes.
pdq 12y ago
I'm interested to see the next evolutionary step in transit. I would have gone with the "dollar van" model would be a better entry. Cargo vans are less expensive to own/maintain than busses, more nimble, and use less fuel. Either way, more options is great for the consumer.
cpursley 12y ago
I like the marshrutka private busses prevalent in Russia: http://www.saint-petersburg.com/transport/marshrutka/ http://www.saint-petersburg.com/transport/marshrutka/
fijal 12y ago
Wow. All you guys need in SF is more ticketing systems. There is already what? 3? 4? In places like e.g. Germany, you have one ticketing system being serviced by different companies that all bid for the slots based on their costs (including the official railway service DB) without inconviniencing the customer.
- msandford 12y ago
  It bugs me an unreasonable amount when people misuse eg. > In places like e.g. Germany, you have... This is not the correct way to do it, and it makes it look as though you're trying too hard. You're using a fancy latin word, but you're using it wrong. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g. The way to write that sentence would have been: In other places around the world e.g. Germany, you have... Sorry for the rant. I see this on HN all the time. It's not just you. It's unreasonable for me to be annoyed by it and even moreso if I do nothing to address it.
  - fijal 12y ago
    I'm very sorry dear sir, english is by far not my native language (I'm pretty glad you got fooled though), I will try to do better next time and please accept my apologies EDIT: Wiktionary does not yet have an entry for e.g.
    - maaarghk 12y ago
      http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g%2E http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g%2E Try that. But the poster above was right with unreasonable. "e.g." is hardly a "fancy Latin word", it's in common everyday usage and everyone knows what you mean when you use it. Anyway, sorry, none of this really adds to the discussion. Leap looks like a terrible extravagance from where I'm sitting in the UK and I agree wholeheartedly with the largely sceptical tone of the comments below.
    - msandford 12y ago
      No need to apologize, I'm the one being unreasonable!
hatu 12y ago
There's like 3 cities in the US with pretty good public transportation and they choose to launch in one of those?
- xienze 12y ago
  You need a critical mass of hipsters for something like this to work. SF is the perfect launch city.
kriro 12y ago
With the obvious disclaimers about the TOC and potential safety issues I do like the overall idea. I commute roughly 50 minutes each way by train and prefer it a lot over going by car even if a car is more felxible. The major benefit for me is that I can read (or use my laptop). I think the "open area" and especially the "opt in share info stuff" has the potential to be the most game changing. I'd really enjoy commuting even more if I had the option to socialize with interesting people. The typical train layout and general no-contact atmosphere on trains isn't really helping much. Especially in SV I can imagine some quite interesting discussions and talks while commuting. In fact I could imagine riding that bus even if I didn't have to travel which is a pretty good sign. Aside from "not a travel company/safety" concerns my biggest issue is scale. Doesn't look like a ton of people fit on these buses. It might also work better for longer routes than the typical inner city stuff (plenty of people living outside core SV that wouldn't mind long route buses I'd guess)
sctb 12y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210
brianmcconnell 12y ago
When tech VCs get into the public transit business, that's a good indicator that we are in a bubble. I was in SF for the 1999-2000 bubble. This reminds me a lot of that. There isn't much upside in a business like this, but there is a huge amount of hassle (just wait until someone sues them for ADA incompliance, and they will). Note also the skin tone of the featured passengers. As someone who rides public transit in SF and NY daily, I'd rather see attention focused on improving public transit, versus privileged white people who live in the Marina transit.

55 points by r0h1n 12y ago

escherize 12y ago

Hopefully more busses, any busses, will cut down on traffic in SF.

sebgr 12y ago

duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9219672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9219672

dang 12y ago
It doesn't count as a duplicate (for burying purposes) until the story has had significant attention. However, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 did have.

AWolfAtTheDoor 12y ago

It seems like San Francisco is one of the few places where you can have a company completely fail, only to see it revamp its product in a way that it will probably completely fail again. While I can't speak for San Francisco's bus system, everything about this product video screams to me that the solution that is being provided here does not actually solve a problem other than "I am white, privileged, and want to ride on a fancy looking bus where I can buy a Vita Coco. I also want to pay as much as $6 per ride, which is egregiously more expensive than something that amounts to little more than public transit needs to be." This whole thing is basically the epitome of the tech bubble and offers little to nothing of real value.

cpursley 12y ago
Yeah, they should drop all the frills. And those seats without backs looks terribly uncomfortable if not unsafe.
- solve 12y ago
  Take away the bus-style seats, and it's now more like a tram/trolly/subway/european busses, from the rider's perspective. This open layout is vastly better than the traditional US bus layout. Feels safer, less trapped. This is the right direction to be going, as public transportation in most of the rest of the world has already proven long ago.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    >Take away the seats It must be wonderful to be so young and healthy and not have any issues that keep you from standing 60+ minutes on a moving and uneven platform.
jsprogrammer 12y ago
You might also want to look at the discussion of their TOS from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 Basically, the TOS disclaims pretty much everything claimed by their marketing material (ie. they are not a transportation company, don't claim to be one, don't make any guarantees or promises about what they do, etc; also, you are dependent on the bus driver to actually transport you because the driver is the 'third party' you are actually contracting with and they won't refund you if they fail to transport you [which they most definitely won't, because they aren't a transport company]).
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  The circular logic looks somewhat familiar. This isn't a subsidiary of M & M Enterprises, by any chance?
- jusben1369 12y ago
  They're in a super competitive market (Other public transport, Lyft, Uber etc) If they don't provide a valuable reliable service they'll pay the ultimate price. Public transportation companies may or may not have a better TOS but the question is what happens to them if they don't hit their TOS? Nothing because they're taxpayer funded/subsidized.
sgrove 12y ago
An alternative comment (that would likely be more useful and spark more interesting conversation) might focus on listing the ways in which you see public transportation in SF as broken, and thoughts on how they might be sustainably (and profitably) fixed.
- jfb 12y ago
  It's not clear to me that profitability is a useful metric in thinking about how to fix public transportation, unless one is running a transportation startup.
  - msandford 12y ago
    Well it's useful in the sense that if an alternative transportation company as opposed to a city enterprise is able to turn a profit, that would indicate something. I think it would indicate that the city isn't making enough of an effort on the mass transit side of things. Overall it would be great if people could start up private bus lines that they believe are underserved which the city would then later take over. If you structure it so that the city paid a royalty to the entity which established the line for a few years, they could probably do a fair amount of good. Now, how would you prevent this from turning into a tollway that's only going to charge for 20 years but 50 years later it's still for-pay? By making the city pay an external entity rather than keeping the revenue. They'll keep their word -- at least when it comes to paying the bus startup -- very rigidly if it's an outflow. How would you ensure that they then lower the price once the royalty is done? That's harder. I guess at least the scam would be more transparent that way.
    - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
      >If you structure it so that the city paid a royalty to the entity which established the line for a few years, they could probably do a fair amount of good. This is very much how the UK's rail franchising system fails to work. Rail is complex because you have obvious economies of scale when you have the same entity managing rolling stock, tracks, other resources, and R&D. The UK's rail franchising is the worst of all possible worlds. Economies of scale are impossible because separate companies own the rolling stock, run the rolling stock, and maintain the track. And no R&D happens at all now. Worse, companies regularly scam the gov by collecting subsidies while they can and giving up franchises early when they're expected to start repaying some of their profits. So this is not necessarily a good model. >I think it would indicate that the city isn't making enough of an effort on the mass transit side of things. Why should public transport be profitable? It provides a valuable economic service, in that it moves employees to and from work. Demanding that it should make a profit is like demanding that pedestrian walkways or the freeway system should make a profit. Infrastructure is a public and corporate good. You can certainly debate who benefits from it the most, and who should pay for it on the basis of the economic value of those benefits. You can also debate if perhaps it's not as innovative as it could be - something which is often true of both public and private transport systems. But there's no obvious non-ideological need for it to be run on a for-profit basis.
ceallen 12y ago
People who drop an extra 4 dollars so their morning commute is reliable and moderately pleasant are now white privileged elite. I'd hate to hear what you think of people who drive cars. Wanting to be at work on time without allotting an extra 30 minutes for public transit shenanigans is hardly the epitome of privilege.
- AWolfAtTheDoor 12y ago
  What aspect of a fancy bus that drives in normal traffic like any other bus (or car, assuming there are not bus-only lanes) makes it any more capable of getting a person to their destination sooner? Addendum: this is a private company that technically speaking does not have to adhere to any schedule and isn't liable for various things (according to the TOS posted in this tree), so if anything you're more likely to be on the wrong end of things compared to an organized public transit system.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    You are assuming that there is no better way to define the schedules, no better way to communicate bus location, and no better way to start buses on time than what currently exists. There are two sides to on schedule performance - what the bus does, and what the schedule says. You are probably right that the bus can't move any faster just because it is private. On the other hand, I bet a tech savvy company can do vastly better at predicting what the actual bus schedule will be as well as communicating any deviations from the schedule in real time.
    - creshal 12y ago
      > On the other hand, I bet a tech savvy company can do vastly better at predicting what the actual bus schedule will be It's mainly traffic issues, or a single wheelchair/baby carriage clogging up the exits and requiring more time than anticipated. It's hard to make useful predictions for that. > as well as communicating any deviations from the schedule in real time. The municipal public transits in many European cities already have real-time schedule updates (and replacements) delivered via smart phone apps and digital signage posts at the bus stops. Big IT (I think Siemens, e.g.) has been offering and deploying solutions for this for years now.
dataker 12y ago
From a technical perspective, it is gathering data and training models that eventually would make it more affordable and efficient. Also, The "white privileged elite" seema to act as early adopters, willing to pay for the extra bucks. Eventually, the technology gets cheaper and accessible to more users.
ahallock 12y ago
Your comment is hyperbolic and race baiting. That this new service solves a problem or adds anything of value is up to the consumer. Maybe there are certain amenities that people want and will pay extra for. There's nothing wrong with that. In your world, it sounds like we should only use the bare minimum and everything else is waste and privilege.
- AWolfAtTheDoor 12y ago
  Your statement to an extent is correct, but at the same time it also supports the fact that those who have the ability to pay more for something are not privileged to be able to. I would love to see the public transit systems improved, busses included. The issue here is that the privatized system and frills that the Leap busses have, which for all intents and purposes are mostly unnecessary, scream upper class while coming across as if the goal is to improve the entire public transit system, when in reality it isn't anywhere near the case.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    while coming across as if the goal is to improve the entire public transit system Where? In their website, all the copy seems direct at the potential customer; I saw nothing about the goal being an improvement to the entire transit system.
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- AWolfAtTheDoor 12y ago
  Anyone in the United States can get an iPhone 5S (and perhaps even a 6) for free somewhere on contract if they look around. If they really want to spend next to nothing, second hand 5 models are not much more expensive than most budget Android phones and will get far more mileage. It's not an issue of Android versus iPhone here.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
> "I am white, privileged, and want to ride on a fancy looking bus where I can buy a Vita Coco. Uh, lets not place the race card here. In all major US cities we have 100+ years of political corruption, union protectionism, bad planning, kick the can mentality, etc that have led to a shitty level of public services. A non-government competitor can help to keep the government honest as people see how much better things can be. As a Chicagoan, my advice is, don't become like Chicago. We ran full tilt towards the "don't challenge the government, we know best" approach which just led to the corrupt machine politics that is driving the city into bankruptcy. I would love to take a non-CTA bus to work. I can't see how anyone could possibly do worse than the CTA bus system. >Some critics have raised worries that these bus startups, like Chariot and competitor Leap Transit, will cause the broader public to disinvest in the city’s municipal transit system. This is a feature, not a bug. I mean, should universities and hospitals give up on their private bus system because it "threatens" the public one? If the public system is so terrible, continuing to prop it up makes no sense. Personally, the idea that we need to build this ultra-egalitarian society is highly hypocritical, especially on an entrepreneurial forum like HN. Yeah, I'm willing to pay to not ride with crackheads and criminals. There's nothing wrong with that, the same way I bought a house far away from crackheads and criminals.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > I would love to take a non-CTA bus to work. I can't see how anyone could possibly do worse than the CTA bus system. I don't know where you are in Chicago, but tooling around Streeterville/Gold Coast/Lincoln Park, I always found the CTA buses clean and punctual. I don't think CTA is a great example of union protectionism or bad planning in Chicago (I'd level those at CPS/CPD). If you can't see how anyone could do worse than CTA, try riding the public transit in the Rust-belt east coast cities (Philly, Baltimore, Wilmington). It can get so much worse.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    >Streeterville/Gold Coast/Lincoln Park To be fair, those are the three wealthiest parts of the city, so there's incentive to make them work properly. I think when you leave the high-income bubble you'll see the CTA isn't like that normally. >Philly, Baltimore, Wilmington Those aren't remotely tier-1 cities with the budget we have. Its not a fair comparison. Not to mention, in places like Baltimore, driving and parking to work are feasible and economic options. In Chicago that's not going to work out.
jusben1369 12y ago
I'll admit the video is a little cringe worthy with hipsters and Vita Coco. But your criticisms are unfair and unfounded. Airplanes sell a range of seating options that have a price to comfort ratio. Train travellers have always had multiple cabins and pricing choices. Car services range from cheap taxis to black cars to take you to the airport. So there's no reason bus transportation can't offer an alternative to the current offering that's more expensive and therefore has better amenities. In general I'm completely bearish though on these new types of public transportation options. We're about 10 - 15 years away from self driving electric cars that could fit 2 - 4 or 8 people based on design that will optimize route choices and pick you up from your door and drop you at the door you want to go whether that's 3 miles away or intercity. And the economics are already there ($6 probably gets you a long way is a Lyft rideshare right now) Leap could pivot to support that new model but I think super large vehicles on fixed routes is going the way of the dinosaur.
- peterwwillis 12y ago
  The examples you give are examples of privilege which benefit the wealthy [who happen to be mostly white] and the only thing that's affected is "rider comfort", which is not real value when you consider the business is a transportation company and not a day spa. There's no reason they can't offer an alternative. But the reason they can and do offer an alternative is pretentious.
  - hsod 12y ago
    "rider comfort" is not real value? What if busses had no seats at all? What if they were 100 degrees? What if they didn't have shock absorbers? What if they smelled bad (worse)? Rider comfort IS real value. You've just anchored your perspective at the current level and decided that anything above that is "pretentious" which is itself kind of pretentious. Also, it seems tautological that luxury services benefit the wealthy. What's the alternative? Socialism?
    - peterwwillis 12y ago
      Sometimes, rider comfort determines value. Such as on an airplane, where a couple inches can determine if your neck and back are screwed up for hours. Or on a bus in Dubai, where air conditioning may determine if you look like you just stepped out of a lake of perspiration. In this case, the Leap is doing what someone else already alluded to: giving you a Lexus version of a bus. It's not like it's providing air conditioning where it didn't exist, or needed room where it didn't exist [in fact, it does the opposite]. Added value is when you get more for your money. Like when you get a free bag of peanuts with your ride, or your ride costs less, or introduces air conditioning. Adding luxury changes the value, but while also increasing the cost. And things introduced purely as a luxury tend to be pretentious. As it's designed now, there are less seats, higher prices, and increases the amount of traffic on the roads. If this service became popular they'd either have to raise the price (ala Uber/Lyft surges) or increase the number of buses, which forces you to choose between increased cost or increased traffic, neither of which improves transportation. I wasn't trying to suggest we shouldn't have luxury items. Just that when it comes to an alternative bus [transportation means], what we don't need is a luxury bus. We need a more efficient bus. Less seats, higher prices and a potential increase in traffic does not seem more efficient to me. -- Let's be honest. This service is intended to cater to people who are "too classy" for the bus, but too cheap for an expensive car service. It's not getting them there faster, and definitely not cheaper, but it is giving them fancy drinks and a space to open up their laptops away from the poor, unwashed masses. It's the upper-middle-class bus service. "Tired of looking at poor people? Need a place to USB charge your phone? Like the idea of going to work in a mobile coffee shop? Try Leap!" Now that's pretentious.
patcon 12y ago
> "San Francisco faces some very real challenges. Taxis are impossible to hail. Private car services are extremely expensive at peak times," I'll admit that this line actually made me angry.

untog 12y ago

I'll be interested to see how this works from afar in New York. To my mind it's likely to just make for more traffic and not take a sizable number of cars off the road, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

krschultz 12y ago
Why would you think it would just make more traffic and not take cars off the road? A bus takes up the space of 3-4 cars. If there are more than 4 people on the bus, it is increasing the capacity of the road. Surely there are some negative effects because busses stop & take longer to turn, but I also don't think their business plan involves driving busses with only 4 people on them.
- a2kadet 12y ago
  That's assuming the bus would only be converting drivers and not other forms of commuters. I have a fifteen minute walk to work. If there was a convenient bus that cut that in half, I would use it. I used to ride the subway to work. That took about 40 minutes. I would definitely consider using a bus instead if the circumstances were right.
- whatok 12y ago
  untog was mentioning NYC. Majority of people commuting in that I know already catch public transportation into the city. I can't imagine this working very well for transportation within Manhattan but I could be wrong.
  - cauterized 12y ago
    Manhattan's buses are already extremely frequent on popular routes (double-length buses scheduled every 2-3 min during rush hour on routes that aren't redundant to subway service, and even on a few that are -- and still packed) and limited by traffic more than anything. AFAICT most people who drive to work in Manhattan on a regular basis do so because they live far enough out in the boroughs or suburbs that getting to the subway/commuter rail is a PITA. There is a large contingent in residential areas of Manhattan above 59th St. that take cabs to work -- especially on the East Side where the subway is often too crowded to get on. Although the 2nd Ave subway (if it opens as projected in 2017) will probably make the subway a more palatable option, I could see something like this being an alternative for some of those riders -- cabs can be difficult to find in the morning, and this would be far less expensive.

nsnick 12y ago

I predict there will be protesting.

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xienze 12y ago

A bus for people who think public transportation is great aside from all those poor black people.

TarpitCarnivore 12y ago

Can someone please explain the benefit of having Wifi on a bus? I know for some the bus ride may be long, especially if you're going from the SoMA to the Outer Sunset or Richmond. But in most cases I've used MUNI there it's 10 minute bus ride, even going from the Haight to Soma. There is an argument to be made for getting work done, but how much work care you possibly going to get done on a 10-15 minute bus ride?

icebraining 12y ago
The reason is (probably) simply avoiding having bored passengers. You can cringe and say that people ought to be able to withstand a 15 minute ride without needing a dopamine hit, but if you're making a business out of it, providing Wifi is a cheap way of increasing customer happiness and loyalty.

lotsofmangos 12y ago

Leap buses are not also currently accessible to wheelchair-using or disabled passengers, but Kirchhoff plans to add that in future buses. They redesigned the entire bus interior from the ground up and didn't include this? Surely if you are going to rebuild your fleet before you start, it is insane not to do the work then. Doing it in the future will be far more expensive and is a difficult decision to make, given you will have to pull a presumably profitable bus from a route for each revamp. (edited for spelling)

dagw 12y ago
You make it sound like they completely forgot about disabled passengers, when the reality is almost certainly that they intentionally excluded them because they are a pain to deal with (slow getting on and off, take up more space than an able bodied passenger etc.)
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  The article presents it as though it was merely an unfortunate oversight. I assumed incompetence rather than maliciousness for my comment, purely out of a sudden fit of politeness. I completely agree however that assuming pure idiocy rather than malignancy is stretching probability more than slightly in this case, given we are talking about highly experienced profiteers.
  - michaelt 12y ago
    The article says they "bought old NABI buses and refurbished them" Replacing seats doesn't need structural changes to the bus - but if you've brought a coach that has six steps and a sharp right turn as you board, there's just no way to adapt them.
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      There is a very wide range of choices if looking to buy an old bus. If someone is planning a transport company, and they buy a coach with six steps and a sharp right, then belatedly realise 'oh-noes, I can't refit for wheelchairs', and cannot fix this by getting a different bus, despite having lots of investment and only one route, then I start to disbelieve the narrative if I also think that any of the executives can tie their own shoes.

pdq 12y ago

I'm interested to see the next evolutionary step in transit. I would have gone with the "dollar van" model would be a better entry. Cargo vans are less expensive to own/maintain than busses, more nimble, and use less fuel. Either way, more options is great for the consumer.

cpursley 12y ago

I like the marshrutka private busses prevalent in Russia: http://www.saint-petersburg.com/transport/marshrutka/ http://www.saint-petersburg.com/transport/marshrutka/

fijal 12y ago

Wow. All you guys need in SF is more ticketing systems. There is already what? 3? 4? In places like e.g. Germany, you have one ticketing system being serviced by different companies that all bid for the slots based on their costs (including the official railway service DB) without inconviniencing the customer.

msandford 12y ago
It bugs me an unreasonable amount when people misuse eg. > In places like e.g. Germany, you have... This is not the correct way to do it, and it makes it look as though you're trying too hard. You're using a fancy latin word, but you're using it wrong. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g. The way to write that sentence would have been: In other places around the world e.g. Germany, you have... Sorry for the rant. I see this on HN all the time. It's not just you. It's unreasonable for me to be annoyed by it and even moreso if I do nothing to address it.
- fijal 12y ago
  I'm very sorry dear sir, english is by far not my native language (I'm pretty glad you got fooled though), I will try to do better next time and please accept my apologies EDIT: Wiktionary does not yet have an entry for e.g.
  - maaarghk 12y ago
    http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g%2E http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g%2E Try that. But the poster above was right with unreasonable. "e.g." is hardly a "fancy Latin word", it's in common everyday usage and everyone knows what you mean when you use it. Anyway, sorry, none of this really adds to the discussion. Leap looks like a terrible extravagance from where I'm sitting in the UK and I agree wholeheartedly with the largely sceptical tone of the comments below.
  - msandford 12y ago
    No need to apologize, I'm the one being unreasonable!

hatu 12y ago

There's like 3 cities in the US with pretty good public transportation and they choose to launch in one of those?

xienze 12y ago
You need a critical mass of hipsters for something like this to work. SF is the perfect launch city.

kriro 12y ago

With the obvious disclaimers about the TOC and potential safety issues I do like the overall idea. I commute roughly 50 minutes each way by train and prefer it a lot over going by car even if a car is more felxible. The major benefit for me is that I can read (or use my laptop). I think the "open area" and especially the "opt in share info stuff" has the potential to be the most game changing. I'd really enjoy commuting even more if I had the option to socialize with interesting people. The typical train layout and general no-contact atmosphere on trains isn't really helping much. Especially in SV I can imagine some quite interesting discussions and talks while commuting. In fact I could imagine riding that bus even if I didn't have to travel which is a pretty good sign. Aside from "not a travel company/safety" concerns my biggest issue is scale. Doesn't look like a ton of people fit on these buses. It might also work better for longer routes than the typical inner city stuff (plenty of people living outside core SV that wouldn't mind long route buses I'd guess)

sctb 12y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210

brianmcconnell 12y ago

When tech VCs get into the public transit business, that's a good indicator that we are in a bubble. I was in SF for the 1999-2000 bubble. This reminds me a lot of that. There isn't much upside in a business like this, but there is a huge amount of hassle (just wait until someone sues them for ADA incompliance, and they will). Note also the skin tone of the featured passengers. As someone who rides public transit in SF and NY daily, I'd rather see attention focused on improving public transit, versus privileged white people who live in the Marina transit.