LA Bike Delivery Network
Thread started by
PeterR at 04.22.12 - 10:38 pm
Good idea
Think of this working on a big scale -- the incentives are there for bikers and drivers alike. Less traffic with small stupid car errands being significantly reduced. Families have more time at home, save gas, etc. etc.
Not all bikers would need fancy trailers, many could be 'lightweight' couriers and fulfill their job simply by picking up something on the way for a customer on their usual bike routes. With cellphones/smart phones, this wouldn't be impossible to orchestrate. Goals would be to keep it affordable, efficient, with money going primarily to the riders, who also work on tips. Perhaps it couldn't pay the rent, but with enough revolving riders around the city looking for a few bucks here and there, this could work.
Screams like sense to me. Ideas?
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Sounds great, but while it wouldn't be impossible to orchestrate, it would be pretty time / development intensive, and once you developed the software/smartphone/computer application to handle that network of customers and messengers and service providers, you could probably sell it to one of the big tech companies and not have to worry about running a messenger business at all.
If you're thinking of something more low tech, you might want to look at the existing business models for courier / messenger services in L.A. and see how their businesses work and why they don't use more bicycles.
You might also get in touch with http://www.pinkdot.com/ and see if they'd be interested in having a "bicycle delivery" option.
JB04.22.12 - 11:23 pm
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i wudnt trust just anybody with my stuff. they can cycle away with it. lol
robertox04.23.12 - 12:32 am
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Those are all really good points. Yeah, not sure if I have the time/skill to put it all together, but somebody could. I would just love to see it exist. Who knows, maybe this thread could find people to collaborate/brainstorm. Sounds like Borfo is down. Who else do you need, really??
Starting with someone like pink dot to put the mechanism in place is a good idea. Ideally this could work for all kinds of small businesses who would like to increase business locally.
I worked for a number of years for food delivery service up in Santa Barbara. The nice thing about that was there were regulars who became very loyal and dependent on the service.
Regarding the comment about not trusting riders -- I think that that is a legitimate hurdle, but a good one to overcome. You would want to work with trustworthy riders in order to limit bad experiences for all. I personally think there are plenty of those to go around, despite how it may seem sometimes.
PeterR responding to a
comment by JB
04.23.12 - 11:10 am
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Yeah, nobody wants a bunch of joseph gordon-levitt's out there carrying their stuff.
PeterR04.23.12 - 11:22 am
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I wouldn't mind Joseph Gordon-Levitt touchin my stuff....
Gizzard responding to a
comment by PeterR
04.23.12 - 1:13 pm
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