Scoop: never drive alone

The average American will spend nearly 40,000 hours throughout his or her lifetime driving a vehicle. Anyone who has looked to their left or right in a car knows – most of us are driving alone, wasting time that could otherwise be productive. In fact, 80% of all commuters drive alone to and from work every day in the US.

Keith Ferrazzi wrote a bestselling business classic called “never eat alone”, speaking to the power of repurposing lost minutes and focusing them on building meaningful relationships. We think this was great advice, but we were surprised to find that even though the amount of time spent in a car actually exceeds time eating and drinking throughout a lifetime, so many of us let that valuable time in a car go wasted.

The truth is that single occupant driving has been the most viable option for most commuters.  When properly designed and funded, public mass transit can be a highly effective solution for commuting. But many cities have underfunded infrastructure investments while urban congestion has grown significantly. Just look at the Bay Area bursting at the seams on BART and CalTrain, both of which are at >125% capacity. A commute on an overcrowded train car can be just as painful as being stuck on an overcrowded highway. Uber/Lyft can work for short-haul commutes, but are cost-prohibitive for daily use if you don’t live within a few miles of your workplace – a growing challenge for workers in cities with escalating real estate prices. Many simply cannot afford to live close to where they work.

The carpooling option has always been an appealing concept, but has only seen limited success historically. Traditional approaches have been inconvenient and inconsistent. Dozens of companies and government agencies have tried to tackle this problem and nearly every single one has failed, outside of a few ad-hoc ‘slug-lines’ in only a couple specific locations. So why is Scoop uniquely positioned to succeed?

Our research concluded that Scoop is already the most successful, fastest growing carpool program in US history. The secret to Scoop’s rapid growth is their enterprise B2B model. They work directly with employers to build a critical mass of users, establishing trust, scale, and compelling economics for both rider and driver from the start. This results in marketplace liquidity that would otherwise take enormous investment and time to develop.

The outcome is a completely new experience for both rider and driver. Commuters get door-to-door pickups, optimized routes to save time, and a Guaranteed Ride Home. Matching is done with Scoop’s unique algorithms to optimize the overall experience, improving not just logistics, but also optimizing along social dimensions. The result? A budding carpooling community of more than 100k users who not only love the time savings of Scoop, but how they are able to make the most of their minutes every day.

For commuters that live more than 20 miles from work looking for an alternative to driving alone, Scoop is not only the most convenient option, it’s also the most affordable. When compared to other options for getting to work, the Scoop model enables extremely efficient trips. The key reason for this is that lack of private driver - these are co-workers and neighbors who are already headed in the same direction. The average cost of a ride on Scoop is $6, door-to-door, less than UberPool or public transit, with benefit of door-to-door service.

Beyond the time and money saved, the real magic in what Scoop is doing is in the relationships they are fostering. The connections formed by peers, workers, and neighbors are long-lasting and reinforce an enduring relationship with their employers. 71% of users surveyed said Scoop availability would influence their decision to work there.

And there’s a bonus. In addition to making new connections and saving time and money, Scoop reduces traffic congestion for your city, offsets potentially billions of dollars of tax-payer-funded infrastructure investments, and eliminates local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the cars not driven.

At G2VP, we saw the opportunity to leverage our background and expertise in applying emerging technologies to the transportation sector to help Scoop reach its full potential. We’re excited to lend our network and knowledge of how enterprise customers choose new, efficient solutions to Scoop as they continue to expand rapidly. If you haven’t heard about Scoop yet, or want them to come to your employer, just let us know and we’ll be happy to make the introduction!