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Detroit is the archetype of urban sprawl, covering more than 140 km 2 of downtown, industrial sites and suburbs. And even if it is a metropolis built in the back of the car, nearly 85,000 of its inhabitants depend on its notoriously unreliable municipal bus network to get around.
An inadequate public transit system, common in many Rust Belt cities, is an obstacle to growth (87% of travel drives some economic activity) and maintains inequalities in the labor market. Andy Didorosi, a Motown native, founded the Detroit Bus Co. in 2011 to offer a private alternative.
Didorosi bought a bus to Craigslist, commissioned a local artist to improve the outdoors and started offering unlimited daily trips at $ 5. The company now offers private charter flights and guided tours – like a historic 40 dollar bar called "Drunks of Antiquity" – in its 15 buses. Private reservations finance Didorosi's mission to offer free trips to Detroiters who need to get around. Each free trip costs $ 5.72 to the company, which is offset by the benefits of the trip. (The company also accepts donations for the "Ride for Ride" program, which offers thousands of trips to school children.)
Detroit Bus Co. is currently working on Hyper, a transit operating system that will help other companies set up private bus companies across the country. Hyper software creates ad-hoc routes and guides operators through the bus provider process.
"If you go to Craigslist and buy a bus for two thousand dollars, you're in the game and make an impact at that time," says Didorosi. "I think that's the way to do Detroit."
This article appeared in the March 2019 issue of Fortune with the title "A Pub Crawl for Public Transportation".
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