transportation : Innovation + Job News

SEPTA has a cure for the bus stop blues. "We're very close to rolling out our full-scale program for real-time bus information," according to SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch. SEPTA's BusView will revolutionize rider experience, using GPS tracking and online maps to provide detailed data on the current whereabouts of street level public transit. The BusView beta version is now live, with just two routes, 33 and 109. The system recognizes the position of buses every three minutes, and then BusView refreshes location information. The full scale version is just weeks away from rollout. Busch says, "Getting this type of real-time online feature for buses is a big undertaking. We have approximately 120 bus routes and 15,000 bus stops throughout the system, so it's a lot of data to process and get organized into something that is both reliable and user-friendly." 

SEPTA already offers a Regional Rail tracking function called TrainView, but it's a basic list of trains and status, not the enhanced map BusView promises. There's a mobile version of TrainView -- no word at this time whether BusView will provide info on the go as well. The big difference between the two modes of transit, and the reason BusView offers such great value to riders, is traffic variability. Buses, unlike their rail-bound counterparts, are subject to countless delays due to congestion, construction and accidents.

To use the prototype version of BusView, a rider calls up the master map, selects the bus route from a pull down menu at the top of the page, and clicks on a bus icon to see the actual number of the bus en route, the direction the bus is traveling, and the time the bus reported being at a specific location. Busch says BusView aims to be "a comprehensive, regular resource for our riders covering all bus routes."

Source: Andrew Busch, SEPTA
Writer: Sue Spolan

It's holiday time again and students at college campuses across the U.S. will be huddled around their local ride board looking for a convenient carpool to drive them over the river and through the woods. As former Drexel University business students, Andy Guy and Aksel Gungor were in that rabble once. But thanks to their new internet platform Ridaroo, a digital answer to the college bulletin board, university students may soon be able to bypass this holiday huddle and get on the road a little faster. 

"We built Ridaroo here at Drexel initially as an answer to the co-op office's ride board," says Guy. "But we quickly realized there was a wider market for a product like this at universities, corporations and a lot of other entities and when we started expanding our horizons, we realized there was an opportunity to make this a real business."

Using Facebook and Google Maps, Ridaroo allows students to connect, share routes and meet up out on the road. Guy and Gungor hope to expand accessibility with smartphones, optimizing the site for mobile phones. As they get the word out through Drexel and other universities, Guy and Gungor are examining other applications, working with businesses and government agencies to start carpool programs for workers. Businesses and universities pay a subscription fee and Guy and Gungor admit that they are still learning how to bring the service to a new location. But once the pilot program is complete, they are confident they will be hitching a ride at college and business campuses across the country.

"Our goal is to go out to the local universities and get somewhere in the range of a dozen schools," says Guy. "At that level, we would feel confident knowing we had proven ourselves in the market. Then it's time to really go after a nationwide effort."

Source: Andy Guy, Ridaroo
Writer: John Steele 

One of the hardest parts of a veterinarian's job is dealing with scared or skittish animals. Oftentimes, your four-legged friend knows they are going to the doctor and they don't like it. But Wayne veterinarian Dr. Holly Connolly has discovered a way to virtually eliminate these fears and the bad behavior that comes at the traditional vet's office. She took her practice on the road.

Earlier this month, Connolly started Are We Home Vet?  a mobile veterinary office run out of the back of a truck, offering all the same services of a traditional veterinary office, but without the hassles of leaving home.

"Pets are so much happier at home and we are able to catch them before their anxiety level gets so high," says Connolly. "By the time you get them in the car and make that 20-minute trip, they are already worked up so those animals that were a handful at the traditional office are completely different animals in the mobile setting."

The truck is fully equipped with an x-ray machine, a full-service lab, a laser for laser surgery and an exam table. Connolly says that, in the brief time she has been doing it, many of her regular clients have already taken advantage of the service. But perhaps more successful in attracting clients has been the truck itself. Connolly says she receives calls on a daily basis from people who have seen her out and about on her way to her next pet project.

"We will be driving around and you are basically driving a big billboard," says Connolly. "We have literally gotten calls while we are on the road. So the mobile unit has been a draw in and of itself!"

Source: Holly Connolly, Are We Home Vet?
Writer: John Steele

For motorcycle enthusiasts, slang phrases describe everything from a type of muffler to a type of accident. One such term passed between riders---'keep the dirty side down and the shiny side up'--has not been lost on RevZilla, the South Philly biker accessory shop-turned-online vendor. With seven-figure sales numbers and a Chamber of Commerce Emerging Business of the Year award under their belt, founders Nick Auger, Anthony Bucci and Matt Kull look to take their business to the next level as they expand staff and marketing this winter.

"We were hobbyists, casually into riding and we were a little bit frustrated with our options buying online from the companies who would become our biggest competitors. We were also hard-core technology guys, all of the founders had worked in the web world, and we thought we could bring something to the motorcycle industry that hadn't been done before," says Bucci. "We aspire to be the Zappos of the motorcycle industry. Everything is about the customer experience, much less about being Wal-Mart and more about being like Barney's."

Started out of an apartment, RevZilla eventually expanded to a small store at 4th and Fitzwater before moving to it's current location, a 4000 sq. ft. retail store at 38 Jackson Street in South Philly. But with their technology backgrounds, an expanded web presence seemed a natural fit for the founders, who have added hi-def video, digital buying guides and sleek social networking functionality that they feel sets them apart in a crowded e-commerce marketplace. Now, as they expand, they are hoping to find kindred spirits who can keep up technologically but who also live what they sell. 

"We are looking to grow the company and our team to spread the RevZilla brand even further," says Bucci. "But we are really looking for people to join the team who love motorcycles, who live and breathe the sport, just like we do."

Source: Anthony Bucci, RevZilla
Writer: John Steele

In Scotland two weeks ago, the Scottish Police Service agreed to European firm ITM Power's Hydrogen On-Site Trials, a test of hydrogen fuel cell technology and fueling stations. The trials, scheduled for early 2011, will also be conducted in England (Sheffield and Southampton). The trials are one of thousands of hydrogen-based projects going on across Europe. And Drexel University-spinoff company AlumiFuel Power--the company responsible for aluminum-powder capsules that, when delivered to water, create valuable hydrogen and steam--plans to be involved. This week, AlumiFuel announced the sale of $7.5 million in common stock of its majority-owned subsidiary, AlumiFuel Power International. The sale, officials say, will allow the company to expand internationally.

"This Memorandum of Understanding is the first step in our goal to broaden our reach outside of North America and provide access to capital for expansion of our product development and marketing activities," says Alumifuel CEO Henry Fong.

While much of the company's business currently focuses on lift-gas for weather balloons and flameless heaters, executives hope to expand the use of these cylinder capsules in back-up and auxiliary power for fuel cells and turbines. But they will have to act fast, as hydrogen is rapidly catching on in key worldwide markets.

"While we must still conduct further due diligence, we believe this can be accomplished in a relatively short time-frame for a deal of this nature," says Fong. "The creation of AlumiFuel International and this funding, if successfully completed, will allow us to expand our reach internationally and raise significant capital to fund our operations."

Source: Henry Fong, AlumiFuel Power
Writer: John Steele

When most people strap on a helmet and hit the road on a bike, they are probably not thinking about carbon tonnage or sustainable energy credits. But with each pedal push, cyclists are putting a dent in Philadelphia's carbon footprint. And University City bike sharing consultants CityRyde want you to know how much your morning ride is effecting the planet.

Creating a personalized version of the carbon metering software they have in city-wide bike sharing programs from Paris to Portland, CityRyde introduced a new mobile application this week helping bikers and walkers monitor their carbon savings and see how much their car is polluting.  The company is beta testing on Android phones with hopes to expand to Blackberry and iPhone in the next month and is working on adding public transit to the application.

Twenty-five percent of the world's carbon emissions come from daily transportation.

"Knowledge is really power," says CityRyde CEO Tim Ericson. "I don't think anyone really understands the impact of their daily activities."

Through corporate partnerships, Ericson and his team hope to offer incentives for people to reduce their carbon emissions. Using increasingly comprehensive mapping software, CityRyde can examine a user's location, route and rate of speed to determine what mode of transportation a rider is using to keep things honest, holding sustainable to a higher standard and making it worth your while in the process.

"A perfect example would be (all-natural foods maker) Cliff Bar or one of those type of companies offering product samples or other incentives in exchange for those carbon credits, essentially giving them a marketing piece and a PR piece combined into one package," says Ericson.

Source: Tim Ericson, CityRyde
Writer: John Steele 

It's one of life's great mysteries: you can travel to a thousand cities and eat at a hundred fancy restaurants and drink a dozen craft beers at each of the bars along the way. But a meal never tastes as good as one at your favorite neighborhood haunt. And according to Philadelphia's sustainability leaders, this phenomenon is not just good for your appetite, it can be good for your neighborhood and your city as well.

Based on a concept created by the William Penn Foundation, partners from the Sustainable Business Network, Azavea and NPower created Common Space, a new mapping platform that creates a network of neighborhood establishments within a certain walkable, bikeable or busable distance to help residents support local business.

"The really cool thing is, I can map my friend's common space as well as my own," says SBN Executive Director Leanne Krueger-Braneky. "So if I am leaving from my office in Center City and meeting my husband who is coming from our house in West Philadelphia, he could say he is going to bike for 15 minutes and I could say I was going to walk for 20 minutes and Common Space will map the area where we would be able to meet up and map local culture events and businesses in that field."

Partnering with tastemakers like UWISHUNU and Yelp, Common Space shows you the best spots in your transit area, allowing you the most sustainable way possible to hit your next favorite haunt. After their trial run, organizers hope to partner with citywide festivals and cultural events like LiveArts and Philly Beer Week.

"Sustainability was one of the values William Penn outlined, which is why they wanted to partner with us," Krueger-Braneky says. "Because the application does encourage walking, biking, and public transit, it's a way of showing what's going on in the city while encouraging alternative transit."

Source: Leanne Krueger-Braneky, SBN
Writer: John Steele

This week, Center City District CEO Paul Levy acquired the Holy Grail of city planning; a detailed set of data collected by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. The data may not provide eternal life for city developers but it will make life a whole lot sweeter.

After years of educated guessing to determine demographic breakdowns of Philadelphia's downtown, this data set has pinned down where the 267,331 Philly workers (as of 2008) make their living and hang their hats. Previously only having county data to work with, 48 states participated in a federal program to determine demographic data for cities. CCD published Philadelphia's Major Employment Nodes: Where City Residents Work, a 12-page report outlining where we work and where that may soon take us.

"This is the Holy Grail we have been searching for for 20 years because all this time we have been estimating how many people work downtown," says Levy. "A retailer wants to make a decision on where to locate? We know exactly how much money residents earn, how many work here. This is a huge tool for economic development."

One of the key myths busted by this wealth of new information is the idea that suburbanites hold most of the jobs in Center City. In fact,
Philadelphia residents hold 51 percent of Center City's private-sector jobs. And many city-dwellers, the report states, commute to outlying corporate hubs for work, which Levy says may drive transportation policy in the future.

"We know now that 15 percent of the jobs in the King of Prussia area are held by Philadelphia residents," says Levy. "So that starts to have huge implications for transit planning. In this report we can clearly show the importance of the downtown and how many people would benefit from improvements to transit."

Source: Paul Levy, Center City District
Writer: John Steele

Philadelphians know SEPTA's Market-Frankford El as the Blue Line. But a new pilot program, which stores leftover power from the subway's regenerative braking system in a massive battery, would make the Blue Line a little greener, and provide SEPTA some much-needed capital.

Earlier this month, SEPTA and Conshohocken smart-grid firm Viridity Energy announced receipt of $900,000 from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority to install a massive storage battery--about the size of a cement truck--at SEPTA's Kensington electrical substation. The current regenerative braking system transmits electricity, collected as trains enter stations, to other electric vehicles. But if no other vehicles are in range, the electricity is lost. The battery, capable of storing up to a megawatt of electricity, would siphon energy to be resold to the power grid. Viridity estimates that this one battery will generate $500,000 a year in clean, green profit. SEPTA has already applied for new funding to install these battery systems at all 33 substations across their service area.

"With this technology, SEPTA can be very strategic with their power; when they are using it, when they are storing it and when they are selling it back into the grid," says Viridity Director of Business Development Laurie Actman. "At peak periods, the grid is willing to pay premium prices for sources of reliable load."

Since 2008, SEPTA has struggled to execute capital improvements to its transit infrastructure. Most recently, a proposed switch to SmartCards has drawn scrutiny from city media and transit bloggers. When Governor Ed Rendell made a play to turn state thoroughfare I-80 into a federal toll road, he promised a chunk of the resulting revenue to SEPTA. Since Rendell's proposal was defeated, SEPTA has been looking for other ways to fund improvements, from fare hikes to advertising on the sides of trains. The battery system technology could be the answer they have been looking for that will finally bring the Philadelphia subway into the 21st century.

"As we all know, SEPTA has always had a constrained budget and not enough money to invest in its infrastructure," says Actman. "For so long, SEPTA's infrastructure, that was built nearly a century ago, has been a liability. We are turning that into an opportunity."

Source: Laurie Actman, Viridity Energy
Writer: John Steele