RideScout:Exploring Bipartsan Solutions in Energy
Recently, RideScout was asked to speak at The Washington Center’s “Exploring Bipartisan Solutions” event. We were thrilled to explain the story behind RideScout and how we think it is a worthy model of emulation going forward to create meaningful compromise to solve really tough bi-partisan solutions. You see, at RideScout, we are more than just a passionate groups of folks working in a cutting edge transportation space, we are also members of our community. Citizens in every sense of the word, and we like to participate. Below is an excerpt from the message we sent forward to over 200 college students in attendance:
So this week you are all here to think about bipartisan solutions. Yet in this most recent chapter of our American political history, bipartisan agreement on anything is rare and on the larger issues of the day, it's pretty much nonexistent. There are many reasons for this, but one of the larger hurdles we face in a divided government is that bipartisan solutions require compromise. And for our two parties and their current penchant for the ideological extreme, compromise means defeat.
Now don't get me wrong, no matter where you fall in the political spectrum, it's not all to be laid at the feet of people you feel that are unreasonable like the Tea Party and ACLU doing battle while sacrificing pragmatic policy for political posturing. Compromise is actually a difficult thing. The Framers of our Constitution actually wanted it to be that way. You see compromise requires a change in one of two things: your values or your behavior. Now one of these changes, a change in values, is probably near impossible. So that leaves us in most cases one option for compromise: change peoples' behavior. The good news is, that unlike a values change, behavior change is possible. The bad news is, it's really, really, hard.
And yet, there are recent examples where liberals, conservatives and libertarians are actually willing to unite behind certain ideas. And there's more good news, they tend to be most willing to compromise on a few really important things.
What do these issues have in common? They present an opportunity for a policy entrepreneur to win. And when multiple political sides see a policy direction as a win (for different reasons), it doesn't feel like compromise.
Some of these are political no-brainers like existential threats to the United States or support to Veterans. Now they may not agree on exactly how to go about doing these things, but if we can keep the policy issue at hand clean and simple, we get agreement and willingness to compromise.
Yet there are other perhaps less obvious opportunities for compromise, that, like the no-brainers, can be opportunities to bring disparate groups together.
One of these is Energy Policy Reform. If we can resist the temptation to oversimplify and devolve this issue into a debate about liberal wind farms or conservative drilling in Alaska, (neither of which alone is actually sustainable by itself), we might be able to keep the policy proposition clean and simple. Then perhaps we can find agreement.
So what sentiment achieves this end in energy policy? We can start with the idea that we should maximize the efficient use of the energy we already produce before we expend additional time, money and resources on creating new energy sources. For every one unit of energy we create in this country, we use just over 45% of it to fuel something. The other 55% is lost to inefficiency, idle time, or overproduction.
And where are we most inefficient in our energy usage that we can fix rather easily? Hands down it's Transportation. The way that we move ourselves around town, around the country and around the world leaves more energy on the table in a month than would be required to move us for the entire year. Millennials alone (the 18-34 y/o) spend $224 billion every year in transit costs. In every 24 hour period 98% of of the seats on all of the planes, trains, busses and cars in this country are empty. Much of this capacity inefficiency stems from the way we use the automobile, where at any hour of the day 76% of the cars on US highways are single occupancy vehicles, or SOVs. In the biggest 15 cities alone we waste 1.6B gallons of fuel each year. Individual car ownership costs top $10K annually and drivers spend 4.8B hours every year idling in traffic.
That's the macro problem. But as you know, macroeconomic problems are created by microeconomics, or, the behavior of individuals and firms. Like many young people, you all are probably pretty technology savvy, and like so many millennials--- you are actively looking for alternatives to save you time or money. So maybe you download all of the newest apps, bookmarks the bus schedules and website. But now your iPhone is immediately overwhelming with too many transportation Apps. Multiple websites and apps open, no easy way to compare ride options, pandemonium. So this is the real problem – with so many options out there, users get confused and frustrated. You might come to the conclusion that no one solution will replace the flexibility of your own car. And you'd be right (in your micro world). That is until now.
But here's the good news. This is a problem that is ripe for bipartisan solution. Why? There's something for every political persuasion here. There's lots of wins for lots of politicians and interest groups and other policy entrepreneurs. There are trees and ozone layers to be saved for the liberal in you and yes for you conservatives out there, there are lots of dollars to be made in the free market in the monetization of all that unused capacity. And, oh by the way, more efficiency would mean more transportation options and savings for consumers, who ultimately elect the tree-friendly liberals and the business-friendly conservatives. It’s a win-win-win. In business, we call this the triple bottom line-- people, planet, profits.
Now once we identify common values, all we need to do is to get people to change their behavior. How do we achieve this in policy? Incentives. They come in many forms. Financial positives, like subsidies. Financial disincentives like taxes. There are creative financial incentives such as user fees that exclude people who are unwilling to pay. In fact, behavior change can often be incentivized by others' behavior, real or perceived. (O-Power example on A/C use versus fans).
At RideScout, the transportation tech startup that Army veterans created to be a Travelocity/Kayak for ground transportation, we are tapping into all of the opportunities this problem presents. Our platform informs and encourages people to make most efficient use of existing transportation options before defaulting to driving their own car. If they choose to drive our platform allows you to offer up seats in your car to others who are traveling to the same places. RideScout allows people to move themselves according to their own preferences and circumstances whether they want to spend less money, or need to travel in the fastest way available. This proposition protects our countries resources, provides vital data and analytics to urban planners and transportation providers about the manner in which we move, and makes the business of transportation for commercial ride providers more profitable, thus spurring more competition and better services for consumers.
But perhaps most importantly, we are trying to help reconnect society. 100 years ago we lived, schooled, worked shopped and died in our neighborhood or town. But as we grew we started creating places that were just residential and eventually we created suburbs. This of course required us to create highways to connect these entities. Thus the arrival of the automobile solved this problem and created new ones--especially for those who could not own a car.
Fast forward to today and we have billions of dollars and work hours wasted in productivity vacuums created by the hundreds of millions of us stuck in traffic, congestion, emitting harmful emissions, and suffering accidents and deaths to drinking or texting while driving. The opportunity cost of time alone in our cars is the time we no longer have to live, work and play. The car, what was designed to connect us years ago has actually pushed us farther apart in some places of our community.
We don't want to replace cars, in fact we love cars when they are the most efficient solution. But when they are not, we wanted people to see the 6 or 10 or 12 other options they have and might not even know about. At RideScout, we don't purport to solve the whole trillion dollar ground transportation problem. We can't. Rather we aim to arm the only group who can solve it with the information, options and choice to make the most efficient use of our incredibly vast and thorough transportation infrastructure. That group by the way is you--the people, the consumers, the citizens, the market.
By aggregating all ride options - private, public and social - around a user, creating a marketplace for riders and drivers to connect in real time, Ridescout gives the market a complete view of all of the rides available to them. There is an old adage that most people don't study economics but the behave as if they did. At RideScout we believe that if the people are part of an informed market, they will make rational self-interested choices. These choices tend to be the most efficient choices in the long run.
And in the aggregate, that means a better transportation experience and consequently better use of our finite resources.
