The private sector creates some losers, too, though. Chariot doesn’t serve many of the poorer neighborhoods in San Francisco, for example. (A spokesperson for Chariot says its routes are crowdsourced, and thus chosen by its users.) And the service is only accessible to people with smartphones who commute during the morning and evening rush. This means that low-income people, who already have limited access to transit, can’t use the service to get to work as quickly as wealthier people can, even though they are the ones that often need reliable transportation even more, since their work schedules are less flexible.

But the private sector doesn’t have to completely replace government services. Sometimes they can work together, says William Eggers, the executive director of the Center for Government Insights at Deloitte, and co-author of The Solution Revolution, a book about how government and business are working together to solve societal problems. Some governments are embracing efforts by social entrepreneurs to solve problems the government hasn’t figured out, he told me. The city of Helsinki, for example, has an ambitious goal to make car ownership obsolete by 2025. Instead, the city envisions a plan where customers use their smartphones to plan and book both public and private transit. Much as Google maps now shows routes by walking, transit, and services such as Uber, Helsinki’s plan would allow users to look on their smartphones and select whichever mode of transport will get them to their destination in the most quick, cheap, or environmentally-friendly way, depending on their preferences. “The most innovative governments are going to say, ‘We’re going to capitalize on all this innovation, rather than competing,’” Eggers told me.

And if there are things that a city has decided it wants to provide—transit service to poor people who might not be able to afford the private options, for example—the government can provide vouchers so that people can choose whatever private option suits them best, Mitchell said. Rather than spending millions to operate multiple transit lines and modes—while losing money—the government can spend less and leave the headaches of running those systems to someone else. It can use the savings to pay for other, essential, government services. This is something cities across America are already experimenting with, contracting with ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft to provide rides to disabled people.

A Chariot spokesperson told me the company has already met with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and that it wants to partner with them to help fill gaps in underserved areas. After all, the company, which was recently purchased by Ford, says that one-fifth of current Chariot trips are to or from public transit stops. A spokesperson for SFMTA says that the agency is open to collaborating with services that can improve its transportation network.

But there is a lot to lose by letting private options flourish. Private transit may run the most efficient service, but efficiency isn’t the sole goal of society. Inclusivity is also important, not just for individuals, but for the health of a society overall. Public transit doesn’t just serve those on the popular routes: Most systems use the heavily-traveled, profitable routes to cross-subsidize routes that might lose money due to fewer riders, according to Ian Savage, a transportation economist at Northwestern University. Private transit companies have no good business reason to provide service along routes that will lose money. But that sets up a losing proposition for both public systems and the ridership of less popular routes: Private services might wind up competing with the government along the profitable routes, siphoning money-making customers, and ultimately challenging the government’s ability to subsidize the less-profitable lines. Cutting off commuting options isn’t just annoying, it keeps people stuck in their impoverished neighborhoods and prevents from getting them to the jobs they need to improve their lives. A government that can’t or won’t provide transportation may keep its residents mired in poverty.