This is what happens when you believe the private sector is the answer to everything. We reinvent the wheel one hundred times, and each time its more square than before.
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Yet somehow more expensive.
Which makes it better than a bus because then I don't have to sit next to poor people /s
Just waiting for them to reinvent light rail
How about Uber Feet, where you pay to walk somewhere?
Yeah, my nearest grocery store is a 1h15m walk or an 8 minute drive.
Uber Rickshaw
Because only poors should walk
They invented FSD in the sixties and it makes a handy little loop through downtown Detroit.
And now we're inventing the shittiest "rail line" between Ann Arbor and Detroit on 94. All the hassle and expense of rail travel, with none of the efficiency!
Never heard of Hyperloop eh?
NOW INTRODUCING: Public transports! But private! And dIsRuPTiVe!
When public transportation was first introduced in most places, it was run by private companies for profit. This changed mostly because it wasn't profitable to compete with cars when those became popular.
Of course there still are private companies running public transport: long distance buses and trains in many places, and commercial aviation is really also a form of public transportation.
So there is nothing novel about buses being run by private companies for profit.
For me it's the marketing that makes me roll my eyes. Shuttle instead of bus when in the United States. (Curiously, in other countries it's called bus by Uber.)
The only time I hear shuttle used is for a thing that transports between two locations specifically. A "shuttle" from the airport to a hotel or whatever, for example. This seems to match the definition of shuttle also, so I think it's correct. It has nothing to do with marketing, rather actually using the proper term.
Wait they didn't have them in the US? We've had uber shuttles for years in India
It's not a brilliant new idea, it's a good old one. Jitneys are back baby!
I think the point is, unlike buses with fixed routes, such shuttles could deliver people to places that face temporary massive traffic - like concert venues or whatnot.
There is no need to constantly run huge amounts of buses there, but at some point of time there's a lot of people willing to go - and such shuttles, flexible in their routes, may be the solution.
Because nobody in any public transit board has ever implemented such a thing?
In North Carolina, park and ride busses for the state fair have long been a thing, among a litany of several other examples.
Just because it's not a completely new concept doesn't mean it's stupid.
It can bring value even if it's a small iterative innovation over existing buses.
There's a bus stop at our local sports arena, and they do a dynamic scheduling thing for events, so no it's exactly like our bus system