
Leap: Your daily commute redesigned - dkasper
http://rideleap.com
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andy318
Anyone know Leap's arragement with their drivers? Their TOS makes it seem like
the Uber for buses.

From Terms of service - "LEAP DOES NOT PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, AND
LEAP IS NOT A TRANSPORTATION CARRIER. IT IS UP TO THE DRIVER OR VEHICLE
OPERATOR TO OFFER TRANSPORTATION SERVICES WHICH MAY BE ARRANGED THROUGH USE OF
THE SERVICES"

~~~
jsprogrammer
Got to love it when the ALL CAPS directly contradicts all published marketing
and intuition.

>see why Leap is the daily commute you’ll love

>Here’s how you ride

>Our first route travels between Lombard Street and Downtown.

>You’ll love our buses

>Our buses are fueled by renewable natural gas and take cars off the road.

>We stripped our buses down

>Every bus has a Leap team member on board

>Our beautifully designed app is the perfect companion to our buses

It sounded somewhat cool until you brought up these terms in their TOS. Now
I'm just thinking: fuck these guys.

~~~
ibejoeb
I don't know if you should go that far. It's probably just a practical matter
of operating a carrier. It might not be advantageous to combine logistics and
operators, just like it's not really practical to build the motor vehicles
themselves, even for large operations like city public transit.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Fine, but who knows if that's true.

State that up front then, don't bury it in ALL CAPS in your lengthy disclaimer
on a separate page while having all your marketing material present a much
different view of what you are _actually_ offering.

Most likely this is an attempt to maximize the "app's" profits while pushing
as much liability as possible off on to other people (ie. the driver and your
"users") and to flout industry standards and regulations.

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patmcguire
Things like this exist in New York, although they're significantly more...
informal. Two dollars, cash.

[http://projects.newyorker.com/story/nyc-dollar-
vans/](http://projects.newyorker.com/story/nyc-dollar-vans/)

Leap can be faster because they cut a lot of things that the SFMTA buses
provides. A big delay on the public buses is letting people with wheelchairs
on and off, if they are using the same design as the video it looks like they
don't support that. They can also cream skim the most popular routes - SMFTA
is sort of obliged to offer at least some route going near most places,
regardless of whether that gets them anywhere quickly.

~~~
jlees
Reminds me of the Nairobi matatus, too: [https://medium.com/@transitapp/hello-
nairobi-cc27bb5a73b7](https://medium.com/@transitapp/hello-nairobi-
cc27bb5a73b7)

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rguzman
I can't shake the feeling that the existence of leap and that it seems
compelling are symptoms of deeply flawed urban planning.

~~~
JimboOmega
I can't shake the feeling that it's an answer to the problem "I like the idea
of commuting in a shared vehicle, but the bus is dirty and sometimes homeless
people ride it."

~~~
asimjalis
I have used buses in SF. They are unreliable. Sometimes a bus just never shows
up, regardless of what the schedule says. Then two buses show up at the same
time. This has happened to me several times.

~~~
anishkothari
> Then two buses show up at the same time. This has happened to me several
> times.

This is called bus bunching, here's an explanation.
[http://www.wbez.org/series/curious-city/why-buses-arrive-
bun...](http://www.wbez.org/series/curious-city/why-buses-arrive-
bunches-110941)

~~~
JimboOmega
I know someone who works at Muni (and generally will answer all my random muni
questions).

Bus bunching is, as that article notes, kind of inherent to the system.

And the obvious solutions (like leapfrogging) drive people crazy. Actually, a
lot of Muni's problems relate to "people get really upset when you do the
obvious fix". Like reducing the number of stops... good luck with that!

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gmarx
I used to wonder, years ago when I lived in SF, why does a supposedly green
city have such lousy public transportation? If this is successful, expect MUNI
to use legal means to get rid of it.

~~~
pjlegato
Privately run, regularly scheduled bus services open to the public, called
"jitneys," are already illegal in San Francisco.[1] Leap and similar services
seem to be ignoring this law. They were banned in the 1970s as Muni's service
degraded, to shield it from competition.

[1] [http://missionlocal.org/2014/06/up-until-the-1970s-muni-
had-...](http://missionlocal.org/2014/06/up-until-the-1970s-muni-had-
competition/)

~~~
joshavant
That's interesting, considering, for many years, I've seen this bus around San
Francisco with 'jitney bus' literally printed on the side:
[http://images.nymag.com/travel/weekends/20090910sanfransisco...](http://images.nymag.com/travel/weekends/20090910sanfransisco2_insider.jpg)

~~~
pjlegato
That guy is the last holder of an old jitney license. The ban was enacted by
not issuing any new licenses. People who already had them were allowed to keep
operating.

[http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/A-One-Man-Traffic-
Buster-...](http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/A-One-Man-Traffic-Buster-
Jitney-makes-quick-2832137.php)

[http://www.yelp.com/biz/jess-losa-jitney-97-san-
francisco](http://www.yelp.com/biz/jess-losa-jitney-97-san-francisco)

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JimboOmega
A privatized intracity bus service? Somewhat interesting. But how can this
compete with heavily subsidized, existing public bus service - without hitting
all the same pitfalls that it does? (Like buses getting steadily less
"express" as time goes on)?

~~~
themagician
It competes by doing things like not complying with existing regulation, laws,
or unions. It's an "app" and thus except from all regulation. So they don't
pay a driver $70,000/yr and give him or her a pension. They can pick stops
based on profitability, not access. They carry the bare minimum of liability
insurance because if anything happens they can just close up shop. They don't
have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. They don't have to
pay for any kind of additional safety or environmental inspections that public
transit must comply with. They don't answer to the residents.

~~~
aianus
Ok, I'll bite, why on earth does a bus driver deserve $70,000 a year and a
pension? There are billions of people in the world who would kill to do that
job for $35,000 and no benefits.

~~~
themagician
Because we've decided as a society that paying people a decent wage is a good
idea.

The same can be said for a lot of jobs, including so-called "software
engineers." You can pay people in Romania $300/day instead of paying someone
in SF $1,800 a day.

~~~
JimboOmega
Dang. $1,800 a day? I've been missing out.

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remarkEon
_California Vehicle Code, §22500: No person shall stop, park, or leave
standing any vehicle whether attended or unattended, except when necessary to
avoid conflict with other traffic or in compliance with the directions of a
peace officer or official traffic control device, in any of the following
places: [...] (i) Except as provided under Section 22500.5, alongside curb
space authorized for the loading and unloading of passengers of a bus engaged
as a common carrier in local transportation when indicated by a sign or red
paint on the curb erected or painted by local authorities pursuant to an
ordinance._

So I guess they aren't using SFMTA bus stops. At least, they aren't supposed
to. § 22500.5 is the exemption for school buses. I don't live in SF, but is
this rule usually followed? In Seattle it seems a lot of the city bus stops
are quickly becoming inaccessible to non Seattle Transit vehicles by design
(lots of new construction for bike lanes and separate lanes for public trans).
So beyond the legal issues, I think something like this would start to run
into real world physical limitations of which cities could actually support
something like this - at least in the urban core. The sort of satellite
commutes you see in cities like Minneapolis would be a different story.

[http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xh...](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&division=11.&title=&part=&chapter=9.&article=)

Edit: first link pointed to an older .gov site

~~~
JimboOmega
There was a lot of fussing and moaning over tech buses using Muni stops, but
that got resolved legally (even if people aren't all happy about it).

You should bear in mind that for a lot of similar startups (e.g., Uber)
there's a sort of "we'll sort the legal stuff out later" attitude that, so
far, has tended to work out well for them..

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grumblestumble
oakland to sf would be huge. compete with the increasingly overcrowded BART,
especially on the pitt/bay point line, and the unreliable transbay buses.
there's already a huge "casual carpool" culture you could eat into.

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xbryanx
How in the world do you keep from falling on that thing when it comes to a
stop? I'm a big fan of always sitting at the back of the bus. Whenever I am
nearing my stop on a traditional city bus I really need to use all the hand
holds to get to the front or side door to keep from falling down. This thing
looks like it has none of those.

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ngoel36
I don't understand why I would take this for $5 a ride over LyftLine or
UberPool ($5/$7 without Surge) which offers presumably much quicker service
and no walking to/from stops.

That being said, I would be pumped to see something like this between SF and
Palo Alto

~~~
throwawaymsft
You're on a comfortable bus, in a comfortable chair with a table, with giant
windows, and not being jostled around in the back of a minivan.

~~~
cookiecaper
Don't forget all the attractive women and hipster-compatible snacks featured
in the video! I'd be interesting in learning about Leap's program to keep
flirtatious models aboard every operating bus, as the video seems to make that
a primary selling point.

~~~
testingonprod
I wouldn't mind

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timdaub
As a person who regularly rides the bus on my way to work I can assure you
that you will most certainly not be able to work on a sideways positioned
table in a CITY-bus.

Busses turn left, right with speed and in some cases break strongly. Speaking
of motion sickness, most people I know are not even able to work riding a
train (ICE for example, which is perfectly comfortable IMO), so why
should/would/could they on a city bus.

However, the interior looks nice and if you're promised a seat then this might
still be a nice alternative to public transportation.

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coderzach
Google Bus as a service. This would be a great way for a startup to offer that
benefit without the huge costs. I like it.

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schintan
the seats look sparse ..how are they going to get by with so few seats and
still be competitive on price ?

~~~
deegles
Assuming a bus costs 100k@4% financing, that's about 2,200 a month.

Salary for a driver could be another 100k (including benefits, taxes, etc).
That's 8.3 k per month.

CNG buses get about 3mpg at about $2/gallon equivalent cost to diesel
([http://www.catf.us/resources/publications/files/20120227-Die...](http://www.catf.us/resources/publications/files/20120227-Diesel_vs_CNG_FINAL_MJBA.pdf))

Assuming 150 miles driven per day, that's $3,000 per month in fuel costs.

Total costs per bus: $13,500/month or $450 per day.

At $5 per ride, that's 2,700 rides per month or 90 per day. Even if they could
only fit 10 people, that's less than 10 rides per day. Seems reasonable to me.

~~~
schintan
this does not include the many kind of fees, fleet maintenance expenses, other
staffing costs, etc

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nakovet
From the video the first thing I noticed was the lack of basic safety items,
usually in regular buses there are tons of places that you can hold onto, and
if it's a longer trip there is even belts, so I wonder how is the licensing of
this automobiles.

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untog
Should probably mention it's SF-only at the start.

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steeef
Indeed. I skimmed the top of the page and my first thought was "Is this a
transit app? Oh, 'Lombard'. Must be SF-only".

