HopSkipDrive raises $22M to focus on school transportation | Hacker News Reader

HopSkipDrive raises $22M to focus on school transportation

techcrunch.com

16 pointsprostoalex14 comments

Agree that school transportation is a solved problem. Shoving more cars into carpool lanes in schools with 2-3 kids per car (tops) instead of more efficient buses seems like a backwards step.

They did not adequately answer the trust problem either.

This service is a different use case than the normal school busing service. It's ideal for one-off edge cases where the district is required to provide transportation but the normal bus service won't work - i.e. off hours, special needs, etc. With that said, it's a valuable but fairly niche service. Not sure something like this can quickly scale up to VC required levels.

School buses are only efficient with certain road/student layouts.

Not solved for the foster care system where kids are temporarily living in the wrong school district, so it doesn’t make sense to move them into a new school. There is an unbelievable amount of terrible ad hoc solutions. A dispatchable service like this is really helpful. (My wife is an attorney for such kids)

How does she handle dealing with the childrens stories?

I suspect the economics for this only work because all drivers are contractors. The founder spent a lot of time highlighting the factors that support the contractor story but with recent changes in specifically California I'd be wary; it's becoming harder to justify the contractor narrative when the market maker controls the entire supply side, ie if they set the prices and the wages ahead of time (and it sounds like they do) it starts to look an awful lot like regular part time shift work.

I'm not sure I see the justification problem here. It's not harder to justify contractors, the reasons for using them are still the same, California simply decided it knew better than the contractors and changed the law to force them to become proper employees. The problem is wholly political and not a case where it makes sense to say one side is more justified than the other.

The need for this in America shows how much of a market wasteland it is. School travel by bus (public and chartered), train, even in rural areas, is 100% government government funded and supported in Australia.

The same is true of nearly every state in the U.S. California, ironically, is one of the states where school districts aren't required to provide bus service to everyone. Apparently, it also varies by state in Australia: https://www.education.tas.gov.au/parents-carers/parent-fact-...

From the Department of Education in Tasmania:

> If your child’s school is not within walking distance, a bus service may be available. This may be free or it may be a fare-charging service. Contact your school to find out about the bus services available for your area.

And apparently even in New South Wales, the government coverage is not "100%" as you claim: https://apps.transport.nsw.gov.au/ssts/schoolDriveSubsidy#/s...

> The School Drive Subsidy is administered by Transport for NSW and is available to NSW residents in areas where there is no public transport, to drive an eligible student all or part of the way to school. The subsidy is only intended to partly offset the cost of using a private vehicle to drive the eligible student and is not intended to cover all costs.

The subsidy is about $0.70 per km, which defrays the cost of travel, but certainly won't pay for a private vehicle for people who don't already have one.

School transportation is a solved problem: good cycling infrastructure and enough schools.

Not for everyone. My kids go to a charter school which the buses don’t service and campus is too far for my kids to bicycle to at this age. HopSkipDrive is a godsend for days when I know I’m going to need them.

Are you talking about the US?

There is neither good cycling infrastructure nor enough schools. Also, are you expecting kids to walk or bike to school in inclement weather?

Also, many children are simply too young to ride a bike to school on their own.

I have to believe that everyone who brings up "bicycles" as a transportation solution has never lived where there is significant snowfall.

My hometown got nearly 200 inches of snow in 2018 - cycling is basically impossible for at least half of the year, even for the fittest, youngest, best equipped, and most skilled riders.

During the school year in my area, temperatures can range from -40 to over 90 degrees F, pushing 100 if you count August activities like marching band or sports practice.

Biking simply isn't an option, not to mention during snow storms and heavy rains. Even the most die-hard cyclists I know around here aren't brave or foolish enough to go biking 10 or more miles in that weather.

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