Public transporation in the United States can be vastly improved from its current state. In particular, this project aims to fundamentally change it in two large ways. First, to make it completely free, and second, to make it fully autonomous.

Why is this needed? First, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 20 percent of low-income families own no vehicles. That means that if work, the grocery store, or church is not within walking distance, these families regularly use public transportation, and have to pay for it. Second, gas prices are skyrocketing, and don’t show signs of coming down in the near future. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that as of mid-2022, gas prices in the U.S. are at an all-time high, more than double what they were only two years ago. This has made the cost of car-ownership much higher, which can be a strain on many low-income families. Third, according to a CNBC article on transportation costs in the U.S., the U.S. Census Bureau reports that the typical American spends around 16% of their budget on transportation costs, with married couples with children spending even more. This has caused public transporation ridership to rise by 21% since 1997.

It is obvious that the cost of ridership is a barrier to entry for many when it comes to public transportation. According to the same CNBC article, after Olympia, WA created a fare-free public transportation system, it saw a 20% increase in ridership in just one year, equivalent to 60,000 new riders. While some may see an economic hurdle with this business model, and rightfully so, government subsidies and taxes can help counteract this. Furthermore, with autonomous buses being rolled out through this program, bus drivers would no longer need to be paid. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, across the U.S. there are 20,840 urban bus drivers. Their average salary is $46,190 a year, making a total of $962,599,660 yearly when accounting for all of the bus drivers. This money would now stay within the companies providing the transportation services, allowing them to stay operational and profitable.

The audience for this program would be people at or below the poverty level. These are the people in most need of this service. It would be wise to roll it out in waves, so that changes could be made based on the results seeen in different cities. For example, it might be smart to roll out the self-driving buses in cities where public transportation is already free, observe how the program goes, and make changes from there before rolling it out in different cities. According to this Fare Free Public Transport article, public transportation is already free in a handful of smaller cities like Akron, OH and our very own Corvallis, OR, as well as larger cities such as Salt Lake City, UT and Miami, FL. These may be the best cities to test the full program in first.

The healthcare sphere also experiences consequences as a result of inadequate modes of transportation to hospitals and medical facilities. In the 2001 survey from a study published in Health and Social Care, one third of eldery poor respondents expressed difficulty in accessing transportation for medical care (Cronk 2015). A survey of low income immigrants in New York city from the 2010 study published in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health found that nearly one-quarter of respondents have had to miss or reschedule an appointment due to issues finding transportation. Samina Syed led a 2013 study published in the Journal of Community Health found that transportation barriers create what she described as a “domino effect” in which missed appointments delays care and medication leading to exacerbated health problems (Cronk 2015).

There are some programs through the government and private insurance companies which aim to address this problem such as Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) provided through Medicaid. In the private sector, some local companies, volunteers, and taxis have been contracted by the state to provide transportation (Cronk 2015). However, according to the MACPAC Mandated Report on Non-Medical Emergency Transportation, common problems such as overscheduling and lack of availability contribute to the inadequacy of the provider network. The report discussed several areas of technological expansion for the program. GPS and real-time estimations could be used to document trips, track performance, and substitute rides in situations where drivers are going to arrive late. Mobile and web applications could supplement the scheduling process and “reduce call volumes and wait times” (MACPAC 2021). Each of these problems and methods of improvement could be addressed by a robust public transportation system which utilizes machine learning and algorithmic calculations to support the demographics affected by this problem.