The Detroit Bus Company

What prompted you to start the Detroit Bus Company, and how is it going to be different than previous public transportation in Detroit?

The Detroit Bus Company is a homegrown solution to transit issues. We had some massive cuts to a bus service that was already bad to begin with, and now huge sections of the city are disconnected from basic public transit. Weve had a lot of solutions come and golight rail, for instancebut right now, were stuck. So I bought four buses, for a total of about $50,000, and I hope to provide a solution.

Why do you think this system will work in Detroit?

Well, its an experiment at this pointwere attempting to run a company in an industry where typically 80 percent of funding comes from federal subsidies and tax money. Most transit systems pull $1 from every $5, so we have to be 5 times more efficient per person.

What kind of buses are they?

Theyre Blue Bird school buses that are very high-capacity, durable, safe and fuel-efficient. They hold up to 66 people each.

Will the public buses and private-rental buses differ?

Nope. Our philosophy is that buses on daily routine should be on the same level as private rentals, so well use all of the buses.

How much per ride, and what does a passenger get for the fare?

Its $5 for the whole daya total-access system. Riders get a wristband, and wherever we go, theyre welcome to go! Right now were starting with a downtown loop, which serves primarily entertainment venues, bars, and restaurants. But were looking to connect the suburbs by the end of May.

What is "WeRide," and why did you feel it was important to include it in your business model?

For every person who buys a ride, were going to give someone else in need a free ride to work. At some point in the future we want to run free buses in neighborhoods that need them most.

Most companies should have a social mission; gone are the times when a business can simply get by with just making money and not giving back in some waynot if that business really wants to matter. We wanted to have a social mission and use the resources we have in the best way possible. Our resources are technology and social media. Most bus companies arent digitally aware; theyre curmudgeons when it comes to this stuff.

So, other than the graffiti-laden exterior design, what else do the buses have to offer?

All of them run on biodiesel that we are producing and harvesting ourselves from local restaurants. The buses will also launch with live tracking, so riders can load up the route on any smartphone and see the buses in real time. The system we designed is basically Google Maps with a custom-built solution that is very easy to use. Were also working on adaptive routing, where riders can request to have the bus come near them. This is still in prototype; I dont know of any dynamic-routing transit system thats been used on this scale before.

There will also be two iPads on boardone for payment (we accept both credit cards and cash) and one mounted at the front with our Belly loyalty program. Belly allows riders to check in every time they ride the bus, racking up points for things like gift cards to use at businesses along the route. Oh, and the first person to rack up 10,000 points gets a bus pass for a decade and a bus named after them.

How big do you hope to eventually scale the project?

Theres only 700,000 [people] in the city proper of Detroit. Thats nothing compared to the surrounding suburbs where theres upwards of 15 million people. Eventually were going to send buses out to the suburbs to connect them to the city.

We also want to send a bus to the airporttheres currently no such public service. But we have to fill all these schemes in an intelligent and decisive manner, with routes that have a real, dedicated need behind them.

Do you think private ventures like this are the future of public transit, when so many public systems are failing?

I think ones like this, yes, but there are a handful of companies out there that will take on a bus system and privatize it but itll be worse than the public system. Theyll pull money out and keep it for themselves. I think you have to hand it off to private companies that have social good as their private objective.

Basically buses suck. Even when theyre good, they suck. So were trying to make it less un-funwith music and great paint jobs and making the buses really easy to ride.

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