A number have tried, and failed. Interestingly, the following three failed as a function of being based in transit-legislation-heavy San Francisco:

* Loup

* Leap

* Night School

My understanding is that Chariot is still operating and doing well, though.

All of them "failed" for legal reasons, not because there weren't making enough money, with enough funding legal reasons also vanish..

That's basically Lyft Line[1], which offers fixed price $5 (at least in Manhattan[2], not sure about other markets) smart routed shared taxis. Seems like buses would just be a matter of improving routing further and scaling each vehicle up.

[1] https://www.lyft.com/line

[2] http://blog.lyft.com/posts/highfivenyc

Yeah, you can imagine it as a continuum: as you go from left to right, you have lower convenience (how far out of your route or schedule it takes you), longer trips, and lower costs, and vice versa.

On the left end would be a private, dedicated chauffer. (Or private helicopter for extreme left!) On the right end would be public transit or walking.

Putting transit options on the continuum would look like:

Private Chauffer -- Personal Car -- Taxi -- Livery/Lyft/Uber -- Lyft Line/UberPool -- Lyft Line + Hotspots -- <potential new bus-like offerings> -- public transit -- walking

My earlier comment on the continuum: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122701

That's an elegant way to think about it.

Perhaps one slight deviation in Lyft Line is is when other people being picked up by your car are running late [0].

0: Personal experience in SF in October.

> Perhaps one slight deviation in Lyft Line is is when other people being picked up by your car are running late [0].

FYI, the Lyft driver is supposed to wait no longer than one minute. If they wait longer than that, you can prod them to move on (or mention that in their review).

I spent this summer in SF and took a Lyft Line home every day. This was only an issue once, and the driver left after ~1 minute, so it didn't actually delay my ride at all.

I'm not sure what you mean; that's consistent with the continuum. It's less convenient (more stops not on your route) and takes longer than regular Lyft, and in return it costs less.

I thought of the abrupt stop as a deviation in convenience / increase in time (out of your control) that doesn't happen on public transit.

Right, but public transit also doesn't (generally) go directly to your pickup spot or destination, and likewise has to make a significantly greater number of stops that don't have to do with your route. Similarly, they can be held up by passengers.

The point is, in general, public transit routes are farther from your ideal route and schedule. Taxis and regular Uber/Lyft go direct, while Lyft Lines are in between, requiring some compromise on route and schedule (waiting for a match).

True. If you decide to do a longer post about the transit continuum, I'd love to see it.

I've built a similar continuum for all of the taquerias in my neighborhood considering price and quality.