they have a need that’s tenfold that of the average population. Then you can start refining the product and scale.
The whole idea behind RidePal is that every single person who has to go to work should have a better alternative than driving alone. This is what we are working toward.
Deploying buses like this is probably one of the cheapest, most cost effective ways to transport people, on a per-person basis. It’s using the existing infrastructure, so you don’t have to build tracks or stations. It’s a very fluid thing. If it needs to morphs it just morphs. There is nothing fixed. So it’s very, very flexible. The size of the buses can vary with demand. So it’s still, overall, a much cheaper way to travel, no matter what. Much cheaper than cars.
X: Is that also true in terms of pounds of carbon dioxide emitted per passenger per year?
NC: It is. If you take one person away from their car and put them on a bus, assuming that the bus transports more than one person, obviously, you reduce their carbon footprint by about 40 percent, on average. There is definitely a strong environmental gain. It is just a very flexible, cost effective way of transporting people. Doing it in a more egalitarian way should be very achievable.
X: The other thing that’s striking to me about the Stamen Design maps is that there are so many people who work in Silicon Valley but absolutely refuse to live in Silicon Valley. It’s kind of silly that we have this dumbbell pattern, where all of the employers are down at the other end of 101, and yet there are so many people who have decided that the cool place to live is San Francisco. And for obvious reasons that I totally agree with—but it’s a completely inefficient distribution.
NC: It might be. But the truth is, when we are looking at our customer base, it’s not just Silicon Valley and San Francisco. There are actually employers all over the place. Silicon Valley is definitely the core of what this area is known for. But there are a lot of people who work elsewhere. So if you look at congestion patterns, it’s not just along 101. I think there is a lot of misperception in the general public about where people live and where people work.
Things do change. Until recently, very few young people wanted to live in San Francisco, and that has changed. The average job lasts about five years, and the average person stays in their home for about seven years, so at some point you are not going to live next to where you work. It will always be like that. Cities will not have either resources or the physical infrastructure [to keep up with shifting populations]. If you want to change roads, it takes a long time. In the meantime, the new hip area will have moved somewhere else. So there will always be a mismatch between the resources available for these people and where they choose to go.
X: OK, and you’re saying buses are a flexible solution for that.
NC: Yes, and it’s true for companies too. When property becomes too expensive, companies will go somewhere else, and they will do everything they can to make that location seem like the next big thing, because that is how they compete to attract talent. So it’s all a moving target, all the time. And all of these people would make their decisions individually, limited not just by economic factors. Which is why I like buses as a transportation initiative, because it makes use of an existing resource, which is roads, and it is much more likely to stay relevant as time goes by because it will be wherever it needs to run.
X: How do people use their time on the buses? From what I’ve heard about the Apple bus or the Google bus, once you get on, that is almost the beginning of your work day. Everybody has a laptop and is doing e-mail all the way down the peninsula. It’s almost seen as your chance to get on top of your e-mail.
NC: There seem to be different kinds of people. There are some people who are definitely making very heavy use [of the on-board Wi-Fi network]. And there are some people who use these trips for reading, catching up on some sleep.
We have not done a formal study, we don’t have hard data, but it looks like morning and evening behaviors are different. More people work in the evening on laptops. In the morning there are people who work. They do things they would otherwise do at work when they get there, so it’s definitely time-saving. And other people may read or sleep, which is also a productivity gain. They don’t have to be tired at work. And when we formally talk with these people, they usually say it allows them to have a longer work day. Or they can leave work earlier and still spend time with their family.
One of the things people tell us they like is that on the buses there is no social expectation of having to talk to someone else if you don’t want to. People feel quite free to do whatever they like, which is valued. There is definitely a lot of social connection that can happen.
X: How do you see RidePal expanding over the next five years? Do you feel like you have a lot of work left to do to conquer the Bay Area before you start looking at other regions or cities? Are there specific types of regions that would be a good fit for you? What challenges do you feel like you still have to figure out here before you scale up to other cities?
NC: The easiest question to start with is, are there other markets that would work? The answer is yes, there are a lot of them. Most urban areas in the U.S. and around the world tend to have a congestion problem.
One reason is that a lot of cities, especially older cities, have a rail system, which was planned and built based on
