I introduced the idea of a General Transportation Corporation in the post entitled Lots to cover. The general idea is to make it easy for citizens living within 30 miles of major metropolitan areas to live without owning cars.
I know what you are thinking, "It is impossible to get around in the suburbs without cars!" Your thoughts are correct, but misguided. Your knee-jerk reaction was to assume that people who don't have ownership of a car also don't have access to them. This belief is wrong, and is proved to be false by the business success of organizations such as ZipCar.
However, ZipCar is destined to be a venture that is constrained to a niche market, unless they can solve a logistics problem that will make their vehicles usable for more than just trips to ballet practice and the supermarket. You see, ZipCar faces the MAJOR flaw of requiring that each vehicle be returned to ITS HOME when you are done with it. This business model is a very primitive solution to the logistics nightmare that would result if ZipCar attempted to let its customers pick up the cars from one location and drop them off at a second location. By not serving the "drop off at a second location" group, ZipCar prevents automobile commuters from taking their business.
Ergo: ZipCar proves that it is possible to free some people from the burden of car ownership, but it is not a general solution to that problem.
But is there a general solution to the problem? The good news is, economically speaking, there is! Thanks to the god-awful prices that automobile manufactures, insurance companies, and gas stations charge every member of society who wishes to own a car... there is LOTS AND LOTS of room in the average person's budget when the cost of owning a car is eliminated. A *cautious* estimate is that during the lifetime of an average car, it will cost its owners $400/month.
Thus, a company (General Transportation Corporation) can succeed if it can offer citizens a CONVENIENT way of getting around for less than $400/month (which shouldn't be too hard). If you had read the previous discussion on GTC, you would have realized that it was just a really well planned taxi service which drops customers off at buses and trains that will take them close enough to their destinations for another GTC taxi to take them the rest of the way. If you had read between the lines even more, you would have seen that the logistics of GTC would work out so that 20-30 cars would be driving their "routes" around small neighborhoods where they operate so that they would effectively be a localized bus organization that is small enough to provide door-to-door service.
Let's try some case study. For the sake of argument, the focus of this study will be centered in the Boston metropolitan area because it is the only area of the country where I am familiar with the Mass Transit System.
First case study: ME!
I am in a very bizarre group of citizens who own a car, but do not use it to commute to work. In fact, on average I only use my car to make 2 trips per week (so it is quite apparent to me that owning a car is a waste of money).
I drive to (a) Matt's place in Waltham, (b) Yero's place across town, (c) shopping destinations, (d) New Jersey, (e) Cape Cod, (f) Shannon (formerly to her college in Easton MA, currently to her residence in Wilmington MA), (g) the South Boston beach, and (h) Rich's place across town. These 8 destinations describe ALL of the places I have gone in the last 6 months from within my car.
Let's examine these destinations to figure out what I would need from GTC to satisfy my transportation destination requirements:
(a) is located within walking distance from the Waltham commuter line, and I occasionally need to bring a luggage sized package with me to this destination.
(b) is within walking/biking distance, and I only drive when I am lazy or when I need to bring something there that cannot simply be stashed in a backpack.
(c) shopping destinations include a couple random locations in Boston (including Harpoon Brewery, the Cambridgeside Galleria, and Andrew Square Shopping Center) that are located close to the Red/Green Lines (easy to serve by GTC). also includes the Natick Mall which I have no idea how GTC would serve.
(d) a GTC car could pick me up with a luggage sized bag and drop me off at Central Square so I could take the Red Line to South Station and then take a Bus/Train to NYC, Hoboken, Ridgewood, and then be met by a GTC car to take me the final mile from the Ridgewood Train Station to my mom's house in Midland Park.
(e) a trip to Cape Cod where I could have packed a backpack and taken the Red Line to South Station and then a Bus to Hyannis where I would have needed to be met by a GTC car. while on the Cape we would have needed GTC to take us to the beach on Saturday afternoon and to the Drive-In Movie Double Feature on Saturday night. Would GTC be accepting of letting you monopolize their cars for as many as 4 hours to see two movies in the Drive-In? That's a tough one.
(f) Shannon's college was located near the Red Line. Her residence in Wilmington is located near the Lowell commuter rail.
(g) this was an impromptu trip when the weather was uber-nice, and if we had taken it without a car we would have taken the Red Line to Andrew Square and a GTC car to where we sat on the beach.
(h) I only take my car to Rich's to be lazy, and an equally valid transportation method is walking to Central Square and then taking the Red Line to Davis Square and walking to his place.
After thinking through all those logistics, I conclude that I would happily pay GTC $200/month for (a) irregular rides when I need them, and (b) the convenience of working with the MBTA to determine the optimal travel schedule so I never spend more than 10 minutes waiting for a connecting bus or train. This would save me about $200/month because my current automobile expenditures are about $400/month.
So, now that I've done a case study on myself, I invite other's to do a case study on themselves. It shouldn't be too hard.
Additionally, I am going to grab a notebook and create a "Car Journal" to describe trips that I use my car for so that I might get a clearer idea of the value of my transportation needs. I think I will find out that ALL of my public transportation costs + traditional taxi service would be cheaper than owning my car. Only time will tell.
