I don't actually think it's that hard to run the numbers on this kind of operation. Capital costs, labor hours, ridership/revenue. There aren't many inputs into a model here. This isn't a complicated operation. It's like a coffee shop that only sells coffee. It's pretty easy to calculate your projected costs and just how many cups of coffee at what price you need to sell to make a profit at your current rent. I can't see how things like this come close to penciling out under any basic assumptions, so they're just selling someone (executive, investor, whoever) on "DISRUPTION" or
some shit.
Chariot, the microtransit service owned by Ford, is going out of business. According to a companywide email obtained by the San Francisco Examiner, the on-demand bus service will cease operation February 1st. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the news to The Verge.
People always come up with examples where services like this would be good (quite possibly!) and profitable (hahaha unlikely), but these are generally examples of places which don't already have transit options.
