Transportation News
New regulated Dallas transportation app promises safety without surge pricing
A new player is stepping into Dallas’ ride-sharing game, and it’s promising safer rides and no price surging. The app is called 2pointb, and its San Diego-based CEO, Josh Komenda, says that it intends to the first regulated ride-share option in Dallas.
The app works like Uber or Lyft, offering riders the opportunity to order a car from a smartphone or tablet, but 2pointb is using only established black car and cab companies to ensure that all of its drivers have passed a class II background check and have clean driving records and commercial liability insurance.
In addition, 2pointb won’t be adopting the dynamic, or surge, pricing that other ride-sharing apps use. For now, its cab partners will operate with an in-vehicle meter rate, while its black car and SUVs have minimum fares and per-minute and per-mile rates that are static. He says that surge pricing doesn’t work.
“The way it’s implemented by the players, we don’t believe that it has any benefit to the supply/demand curve,” he says. “It’s more about revenue maximization. We generally incentivize drivers, and they really appreciate the stability of knowing that they’re not going to get frustrated passengers when pricing is crazy.”
Komenda has previous experience in the mobile app market. He and a partner, Jeremy Schrage, previously founded GoFastCab, an app that allowed users to schedule cab rides, which he sold to Arizona-based Total Transit in 2013.
He says that he chose Dallas as 2pointb’s first market because of a marriage of demographics and recent regulation.
“The first thing is that the Dallas market is a really great market with young achievers and a large number of successful people who are attracted to the value of the service,” he says. “The other is that Dallas began the process of regulation [for ride-sharing apps] last fall. They had been operating in limbo, and we had the chance to watch the process with a business manager on the ground.”
Those regulations, which take effect April 30, require ride-sharing app drivers to “have an operating permit, a valid driver’s license, limited traffic violations and must undergo background checks.” Komenda says that 2pointb will be the first fully regulated ride-sharing app in Dallas because it requires all of those things from its drivers already.
Komenda is also taking part in Dallas Startup Week in a session March 5 called “The Future of Urban Mobility.” The talk starts at 4 pm at the Chase Basecamp at 1700 Pacific Ave. and will include Chad Edwards, assistant vice president of DART; Todd Plesko, vice president of planning and development at DART; Chris George, director of evangelism at Vinli; and Walkable DFW founder Patrick Kennedy.
