Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/17/leap-buses

by r0h1n • 11 years ago

55 80 11 years ago

techcrunch.com

escherize• 11 years ago

Hopefully more busses, any busses, will cut down on traffic in SF.

sebgr• 11 years ago

duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9219672

dang• 11 years ago

It doesn't count as a duplicate (for burying purposes) until the story has had significant attention. However, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210 did have.

AWolfAtTheDoor3• 11 years ago

It seems like San Francisco is one of the few places where you can have a company completely fail, only to see it revamp its product in a way that it will probably completely fail again.

While I can't speak for San Francisco's bus system, everything about this product video screams to me that the solution that is being provided here does not actually solve a problem other than "I am white, privileged, and want to ride on a fancy looking bus where I can buy a Vita Coco. I also want to pay as much as $6 per ride, which is egregiously more expensive than something that amounts to little more than public transit needs to be."

This whole thing is basically the epitome of the tech bubble and offers little to nothing of real value.

cpursley2• 11 years ago

Yeah, they should drop all the frills. And those seats without backs looks terribly uncomfortable if not unsafe.

solve• 11 years ago

Take away the bus-style seats, and it's now more like a tram/trolly/subway/european busses, from the rider's perspective.

This open layout is vastly better than the traditional US bus layout. Feels safer, less trapped. This is the right direction to be going, as public transportation in most of the rest of the world has already proven long ago.

jsprogrammer• 11 years ago

You might also want to look at the discussion of their TOS from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210

Basically, the TOS disclaims pretty much everything claimed by their marketing material (ie. they are not a transportation company, don't claim to be one, don't make any guarantees or promises about what they do, etc; also, you are dependent on the bus driver to actually transport you because the driver is the 'third party' you are actually contracting with and they won't refund you if they fail to transport you [which they most definitely won't, because they aren't a transport company]).

lotsofmangos4• 11 years ago

The circular logic looks somewhat familiar.

This isn't a subsidiary of M & M Enterprises, by any chance?

jusben13693• 11 years ago

They're in a super competitive market (Other public transport, Lyft, Uber etc) If they don't provide a valuable reliable service they'll pay the ultimate price. Public transportation companies may or may not have a better TOS but the question is what happens to them if they don't hit their TOS? Nothing because they're taxpayer funded/subsidized.

sgrove• 11 years ago

An alternative comment (that would likely be more useful and spark more interesting conversation) might focus on listing the ways in which you see public transportation in SF as broken, and thoughts on how they might be sustainably (and profitably) fixed.

jfb4• 11 years ago

It's not clear to me that profitability is a useful metric in thinking about how to fix public transportation, unless one is running a transportation startup.

negrit• 11 years ago

Public transportation in SF is not perfect but it's far from being broken. I lived in 10 different cities on 3 different continents. Got to ride the best public transportation(London, Tokyo, Singapore, ...) and worst(LA, Manila, ...). SF isn't bad at all.

The only issue is a non issue: Richer people can afford private drivers(Uber/Lyft/Whatever). It's nothing new, it just became more affordable in the past years. And public transportation isn't suppose to be profitable. It's about letting everyone move around a city for a very affordable price.

mvc• 11 years ago

I don't live there yet but I will in a couple of weeks and have been researching where to live. One problem from my point of view is that there appears to be no monthly pass you can get that works from the places that one might reasonably want to commute from (e.g. Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley)

ceallen• 11 years ago

People who drop an extra 4 dollars so their morning commute is reliable and moderately pleasant are now white privileged elite. I'd hate to hear what you think of people who drive cars.

Wanting to be at work on time without allotting an extra 30 minutes for public transit shenanigans is hardly the epitome of privilege.

AWolfAtTheDoor3• 11 years ago

What aspect of a fancy bus that drives in normal traffic like any other bus (or car, assuming there are not bus-only lanes) makes it any more capable of getting a person to their destination sooner?

Addendum: this is a private company that technically speaking does not have to adhere to any schedule and isn't liable for various things (according to the TOS posted in this tree), so if anything you're more likely to be on the wrong end of things compared to an organized public transit system.

tomasien• 11 years ago

It's not an extra 4 dollars, it's an extra 1-2 dollars!

dataker• 11 years ago

From a technical perspective, it is gathering data and training models that eventually would make it more affordable and efficient.

Also, The "white privileged elite" seema to act as early adopters, willing to pay for the extra bucks. Eventually, the technology gets cheaper and accessible to more users.

ahallock• 11 years ago

Your comment is hyperbolic and race baiting. That this new service solves a problem or adds anything of value is up to the consumer. Maybe there are certain amenities that people want and will pay extra for. There's nothing wrong with that. In your world, it sounds like we should only use the bare minimum and everything else is waste and privilege.

AWolfAtTheDoor3• 11 years ago

Your statement to an extent is correct, but at the same time it also supports the fact that those who have the ability to pay more for something are not privileged to be able to.

I would love to see the public transit systems improved, busses included. The issue here is that the privatized system and frills that the Leap busses have, which for all intents and purposes are mostly unnecessary, scream upper class while coming across as if the goal is to improve the entire public transit system, when in reality it isn't anywhere near the case.

drzaiusapelord4• 11 years ago

"I am white, privileged, and want to ride on a fancy looking bus where I can buy a Vita Coco.

Uh, lets not place the race card here. In all major US cities we have 100+ years of political corruption, union protectionism, bad planning, kick the can mentality, etc that have led to a shitty level of public services. A non-government competitor can help to keep the government honest as people see how much better things can be. As a Chicagoan, my advice is, don't become like Chicago. We ran full tilt towards the "don't challenge the government, we know best" approach which just led to the corrupt machine politics that is driving the city into bankruptcy. I would love to take a non-CTA bus to work. I can't see how anyone could possibly do worse than the CTA bus system.

Some critics have raised worries that these bus startups, like Chariot and competitor Leap Transit, will cause the broader public to disinvest in the city’s municipal transit system.

This is a feature, not a bug. I mean, should universities and hospitals give up on their private bus system because it "threatens" the public one? If the public system is so terrible, continuing to prop it up makes no sense.

Personally, the idea that we need to build this ultra-egalitarian society is highly hypocritical, especially on an entrepreneurial forum like HN. Yeah, I'm willing to pay to not ride with crackheads and criminals. There's nothing wrong with that, the same way I bought a house far away from crackheads and criminals.

rayiner• 11 years ago

I would love to take a non-CTA bus to work. I can't see how anyone could possibly do worse than the CTA bus system.

I don't know where you are in Chicago, but tooling around Streeterville/Gold Coast/Lincoln Park, I always found the CTA buses clean and punctual. I don't think CTA is a great example of union protectionism or bad planning in Chicago (I'd level those at CPS/CPD).

If you can't see how anyone could do worse than CTA, try riding the public transit in the Rust-belt east coast cities (Philly, Baltimore, Wilmington). It can get so much worse.

jusben13693• 11 years ago

I'll admit the video is a little cringe worthy with hipsters and Vita Coco. But your criticisms are unfair and unfounded. Airplanes sell a range of seating options that have a price to comfort ratio. Train travellers have always had multiple cabins and pricing choices. Car services range from cheap taxis to black cars to take you to the airport. So there's no reason bus transportation can't offer an alternative to the current offering that's more expensive and therefore has better amenities.

In general I'm completely bearish though on these new types of public transportation options. We're about 10 - 15 years away from self driving electric cars that could fit 2 - 4 or 8 people based on design that will optimize route choices and pick you up from your door and drop you at the door you want to go whether that's 3 miles away or intercity. And the economics are already there ($6 probably gets you a long way is a Lyft rideshare right now) Leap could pivot to support that new model but I think super large vehicles on fixed routes is going the way of the dinosaur.

peterwwillis2• 11 years ago

The examples you give are examples of privilege which benefit the wealthy [who happen to be mostly white] and the only thing that's affected is "rider comfort", which is not real value when you consider the business is a transportation company and not a day spa. There's no reason they can't offer an alternative. But the reason they can and do offer an alternative is pretentious.

patcon• 11 years ago

"San Francisco faces some very real challenges. Taxis are impossible to hail. Private car services are extremely expensive at peak times,"

I'll admit that this line actually made me angry.

untog2• 11 years ago

I'll be interested to see how this works from afar in New York. To my mind it's likely to just make for more traffic and not take a sizable number of cars off the road, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

krschultz2• 11 years ago

Why would you think it would just make more traffic and not take cars off the road?

A bus takes up the space of 3-4 cars. If there are more than 4 people on the bus, it is increasing the capacity of the road. Surely there are some negative effects because busses stop & take longer to turn, but I also don't think their business plan involves driving busses with only 4 people on them.

a2kadet• 11 years ago

That's assuming the bus would only be converting drivers and not other forms of commuters.

I have a fifteen minute walk to work. If there was a convenient bus that cut that in half, I would use it. I used to ride the subway to work. That took about 40 minutes. I would definitely consider using a bus instead if the circumstances were right.

whatok• 11 years ago

untog was mentioning NYC. Majority of people commuting in that I know already catch public transportation into the city. I can't imagine this working very well for transportation within Manhattan but I could be wrong.

untog2• 11 years ago

That assumes everyone on the bus was previously driving. This is more likely to take people who currently ride public transit, so you'll have two buses, half as full as the previous one was.

michaelt2• 11 years ago

"Emergent demand" is the idea that there are people who would like to drive in the centre of big cities, and the only reason they don't is because the congestion is so bad.

This often comes up in the context of building more roads to alleviate congestion. It won't work, the theory goes, because when congestion reduces more people start driving, until the congestion reaches equilibrium again.

If buses take cars off the street and reduce congestion, the same argument applies; emergent demand will mean any cars taken off the street will soon be replaced.

Personally emergent demand has always struck me as a rather defeatist idea :)

drzaiusapelord4• 11 years ago

If you're taking from drivers that means less cars. If you're taking from public trans, that means the city has to lower the number of buses on that route because the competition has taken their customers. Win-win as far as I can see.

nsnick• 11 years ago

I predict there will be protesting.

xienze2• 11 years ago

A bus for people who think public transportation is great aside from all those poor black people.

TarpitCarnivore• 11 years ago

Can someone please explain the benefit of having Wifi on a bus? I know for some the bus ride may be long, especially if you're going from the SoMA to the Outer Sunset or Richmond. But in most cases I've used MUNI there it's 10 minute bus ride, even going from the Haight to Soma. There is an argument to be made for getting work done, but how much work care you possibly going to get done on a 10-15 minute bus ride?

icebraining2• 11 years ago

The reason is (probably) simply avoiding having bored passengers.

You can cringe and say that people ought to be able to withstand a 15 minute ride without needing a dopamine hit, but if you're making a business out of it, providing Wifi is a cheap way of increasing customer happiness and loyalty.

lotsofmangos4• 11 years ago

Leap buses are not also currently accessible to wheelchair-using or disabled passengers, but Kirchhoff plans to add that in future buses.

They redesigned the entire bus interior from the ground up and didn't include this? Surely if you are going to rebuild your fleet before you start, it is insane not to do the work then. Doing it in the future will be far more expensive and is a difficult decision to make, given you will have to pull a presumably profitable bus from a route for each revamp.

(edited for spelling)

dagw• 11 years ago

You make it sound like they completely forgot about disabled passengers, when the reality is almost certainly that they intentionally excluded them because they are a pain to deal with (slow getting on and off, take up more space than an able bodied passenger etc.)

lotsofmangos4• 11 years ago

The article presents it as though it was merely an unfortunate oversight. I assumed incompetence rather than maliciousness for my comment, purely out of a sudden fit of politeness.

I completely agree however that assuming pure idiocy rather than malignancy is stretching probability more than slightly in this case, given we are talking about highly experienced profiteers.

smackfu• 11 years ago

The question is what would ever motivate them to actually add accessible buses.

pdq• 11 years ago

I'm interested to see the next evolutionary step in transit.

I would have gone with the "dollar van" model would be a better entry. Cargo vans are less expensive to own/maintain than busses, more nimble, and use less fuel.

Either way, more options is great for the consumer.

cpursley2• 11 years ago

I like the marshrutka private busses prevalent in Russia:

http://www.saint-petersburg.com/transport/marshrutka/

fijal2• 11 years ago

Wow. All you guys need in SF is more ticketing systems. There is already what? 3? 4? In places like e.g. Germany, you have one ticketing system being serviced by different companies that all bid for the slots based on their costs (including the official railway service DB) without inconviniencing the customer.

msandford4• 11 years ago

It bugs me an unreasonable amount when people misuse eg.

In places like e.g. Germany, you have...

This is not the correct way to do it, and it makes it look as though you're trying too hard. You're using a fancy latin word, but you're using it wrong.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/e.g.

The way to write that sentence would have been:

In other places around the world e.g. Germany, you have...

Sorry for the rant. I see this on HN all the time. It's not just you. It's unreasonable for me to be annoyed by it and even moreso if I do nothing to address it.

fijal2• 11 years ago

I'm very sorry dear sir, english is by far not my native language (I'm pretty glad you got fooled though), I will try to do better next time and please accept my apologies

EDIT: Wiktionary does not yet have an entry for e.g.

hatu• 11 years ago

There's like 3 cities in the US with pretty good public transportation and they choose to launch in one of those?

xienze2• 11 years ago

You need a critical mass of hipsters for something like this to work. SF is the perfect launch city.

kriro• 11 years ago

With the obvious disclaimers about the TOC and potential safety issues I do like the overall idea. I commute roughly 50 minutes each way by train and prefer it a lot over going by car even if a car is more felxible. The major benefit for me is that I can read (or use my laptop).

I think the "open area" and especially the "opt in share info stuff" has the potential to be the most game changing. I'd really enjoy commuting even more if I had the option to socialize with interesting people. The typical train layout and general no-contact atmosphere on trains isn't really helping much.

Especially in SV I can imagine some quite interesting discussions and talks while commuting. In fact I could imagine riding that bus even if I didn't have to travel which is a pretty good sign.

Aside from "not a travel company/safety" concerns my biggest issue is scale. Doesn't look like a ton of people fit on these buses. It might also work better for longer routes than the typical inner city stuff (plenty of people living outside core SV that wouldn't mind long route buses I'd guess)

sctb• 11 years ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220210

brianmcconnell• 11 years ago

When tech VCs get into the public transit business, that's a good indicator that we are in a bubble. I was in SF for the 1999-2000 bubble. This reminds me a lot of that.

There isn't much upside in a business like this, but there is a huge amount of hassle (just wait until someone sues them for ADA incompliance, and they will).

Note also the skin tone of the featured passengers. As someone who rides public transit in SF and NY daily, I'd rather see attention focused on improving public transit, versus privileged white people who live in the Marina transit.

Andreessen Horowitz-Backed Leap Buses Are Hitting SF Streets This Week

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