Franco Vairani
Filling a Need
MIT's CityCar aims to hack this system with a whole new approach. “The CityCar doesn't aim to replace the automobile or the subway,” says Media Lab researcher Ryan Chin, who's worked on the project since its inception in 2002, “so much as to fill a niche somewhere between private vehicles and public transportation.”
The system works a little like a luggage cart at the airport. “Stacks” of CityCars would be stationed at subway and train stops, as well as at shopping and cultural destinations around a city. While parked, the two-seaters top up their batteries to give them plenty of juice to handle round-trips of 50 miles or more. To check out a CityCar, a traveler would swipe a preauthorized smart card and roll away. When finished, cars could be returned to any stack anywhere in the city, and users would be billed based on some combination of the duration and distance of the trip. Pricing is still hypothetical, but, based on surveys, would aim for a price-point sweet spot somewhere above the cost of mass transit but less than a taxi journey of similar distance.
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