Instructions:
Evaluation: You should read the other file then answer these
questions.
1. What is the name of the initiative that you are evaluating? What is the main mission?
What area in Maryland will this initiative be working in primarily?
2. What is your overall impression of the initiative’s proposal? What do you like and
dislike? Are you able to understand what the initiative is about?
3. What are some of the main objectives that the initiative is planning to implement in
order to improve their target area?
4. Do you feel that these planned objectives are justified based on the information that
they provided? Is the proposal well supported? Explain.
5. Do you have any suggested improvements for their proposal?
6. Assuming that you were the person in charge of funding this initiative based on the
proposal alone, would you support the project? Explain.
7. If this were a real initiative would you find it credible, based on the information
provided in the proposal?
8. Did the company accurately explain the technology needed to achieve their goal? Do
you feel that it was well support and justified?
9. On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is the highest) how would you rate this company based
on the proposal? Explain.
10. Any additional comments?
Baltimore Transportation System
Initiative Name: Bmore Fleet
Target Area: Baltimore City
Emily Flinchum
Michaela Bamfo
Jamauri Goldwire
Nick Holtz
Matt Krawczyk
TJ Smoot
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Table of Contents
PHASE 1
Executive Summary ............... 2
The Initiative
● Description & Competitive Advantages ...............3
● Analysis of Target Area ...............4
● Benefits & Opportunities for the Community ...............6
● Logo ...............6
PHASE 2
Questions
● 1-3…….8
● 4-5…….9
● 6……...10
● 7-11…..11
Reflection……..12
Sources……..13
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Phase 1
Executive Summary
Our initiative hopes to develop a more reliable transportation system that connects the
city in a more effective way than the current public transportation system in place, by providing
fleets of cars that allow for fast and efficient travel. Our initiative is specifically aiming to help
those who both live and work within the city, as this access to efficient transportation through
their jobs would be the most helpful to them. Anyone who has used public transportation within
the city can tell you it’s flaws: it’s always late, it’s crowded, and there is not enough stops,
causing people to have to take multiple buses to get where they need to go, yet one may have a
long route for the drivers. The current Maryland bus system favors areas with large
concentrations of workers who may not live in the city, such as the Inner Harbor, or reaching out
to areas of Baltimore County, leaving the working and lower class people of Baltimore City, who
may need to rely on public transportation as a part of their daily lives, struggling to get where
they need to go and get there on time. And those with cars struggle with parking, heavy traffic,
and the harmful effects of cars on our environment. With our initiative, we hope to make a
transportation system that is easier to use and more readily available for those who need it,
making transportation easier for everyone within Baltimore City.
What is special about our car system is our ability to reach a demographic that needs
transportation, but may not have the best access to it. With the current Baltimore bus system,
there is a lack of travel in parts of the City that may need to rely heavily on public transportation.
By using our cars to reach these areas, we are creating more efficiency in the movement in
Baltimore City, and by helping people get to where they need to be faster, this creates more
activity within Baltimore for those who live here, not just those who may come to the city to
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work. Another reason the Bmore Fleet is special is how it operates. By partnering directly with
jobs in Baltimore City, this gives more incentive for those who work in the city to live here as
well, as they will no longer have to worry about their commute and will have benefits not
available to those outside of Baltimore City
The Initiative
Pt. 1: Description & Competitive Advantages
One of the major issues facing any city or metropolitan area is transportation. This is
apparent in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. The inefficient and ineffective public transportation
in Baltimore City has been the motivation behind our car service, Bmore Fleet.
This issue is especially apparent to our group because as some of us are commuters we
have experienced firsthand the issues with Baltimore’s public transportation system with its
excessive delays and even cancellations. Our initiative is set out to try and improve
transportation around Baltimore by the creation of a more effective system of cars, provided
through jobs, to get their workers throughout Baltimore City efficiently and with no worries
about the public transportation system. Our fleet of available cars and drivers will make getting
through Baltimore City easier, and will be beneficial for those who live in parts of the city that
do not have public transportation readily available to them. When our initiative succeeds it will
greatly improve people’s outlook on the city of Baltimore as well as attract more people to the
area.
Last year, the Opportunity Collaborative, a project of the Baltimore Metropolitan
Council, found the average commute for citizens in East and West Baltimore to living-wage jobs
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was 90 minutes each way. (Budish) This is an unacceptable statistic compared to the rest of the
united states which according to the US Census Bureau is 25.4 minutes a fraction of that time.
This is what our main motivation and goal, we want to fix our cities serious transportation issues.
Pt. 2: Analysis of Target Area
Our area of focus is the working class population of Baltimore City. The city has a large network
of buses already, but the routes and times are not efficient enough for those who actively rely on
the public transportation system for their daily commutes. The target demographic is workers
still working in the city along with business owners that employ many citizens of the City of
Baltimore. The City of Baltimore is characterized as a densely populated urban center with low
income and high income areas that are separated. The population of the city is slowly declining
because the people with money are beginning to leave, with the help of our car system it will be
more efficient to live and work in the city stabilizing the population. Our largest barrier to entry
is the Maryland Transportation Association because they are the only company currently running
a public transportation system in Maryland, as well as other car services such as Uber and Lyft
who may see us as competition (even though in contrast to these services, we work directly with
companies to provide rides for their workers). Another barrier of entry is local businesses in the
city not supporting our transportation system. They may feel that transportation is not worth the
extra cost and should be put on the workers to get to work on time. Originally the bus system in
Baltimore City had over 5000 stops, which was reduced to improve reliability and efficiency
(Maryland Department of Transportation). By doing this the bus system became complicated and
a large portion of citizens were left without their stops, making it harder for them to commute.
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The plan we have is to have cars available for those businesses that partner with us, giving rides
to their workers when they need them. There would be an app letting them know what times the
cars arrive, as well as how to call an emergency car if one is needed right away (these emergency
cars will be limited, though). The maps included in this analysis show the current bus routes in
the city along with the whole Baltimore area itself. We hope to help those in the neighborhoods
that don't have active bus stops that take them to the areas where they work. Together we can
succeed in making an efficient and reliable car system that allows for better transportation
throughout Baltimore City.
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Pt. 3: Benefits & Opportunities for the Community
`The benefits of our newly designed car system is directed to the people who live and
work in the city, as well as the businesses they work for. Our new car system offers passes to
businesses in the area so that they can give them to all employees that don’t have their own
means of transportation. What makes our cars better is that they allow people to get to their
destinations quickly with no hassle. Unlike public transportation, there is no worry about late
transportation, lack of bus stops, or needing to take multiple forms of transportation to get where
they need to go. Bmore Fleet allows for quick travel only in Baltimore City, and by keeping our
system local it makes it easier to get people where they need to go in an efficient way.
This brings a lot of opportunities for businesses as they can add workers benefit of paid
travel which could bring them more employees. While also an opportunity for employees to save
money from either gas or their normal bus route. For the drivers they won’t have to worry about
the long tedious routes anymore, instead only focusing on the city.
Pt. 4: Logo
When the 10 people were surveyed, we
were working with our prior idea of using a
bus system, instead of cars. After surveying
10 people on our logo there were mixed
emotions on the logo. One of the responses
that surprised me is that they didn’t know
that logo was representing. They did not
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know the aim of logo, all they can understand about the logo is that it had to do with Baltimore.
Another comment that was given on the logo is that although it was appealing to the eye because
of the different color cars they did not understand the use of the cars after finding out the aim of
the logo. One person believed that instead of using cars we should use buses if we’re focusing on
Baltimore public transportation. Although this is good criticism there were some comments that
seemed positive . One of the comments was the unique way of naming our company “BMORE
FLEET” instead of the generic “Baltimore Transportation.” They found that it brought
uniqueness to our company and was memorable. Another positive comment made was that the
logo brought unity to Baltimore citizens and transportation. Although some people didn’t
understand what the logo meant some people thought that since “ Fleet” meant “to work together
towards a certain direction” it meant to them that Baltimore would work more on transportation
and making sufficient even though they found the cares useless in the logo and buses more
appropriate. Overall I believe our Logo brought across our purpose and what we aim to achieve
for the Baltimore citizens.
After changing our idea from a bus system to a group of cars, our logo is even more
effective as a problem that it had before is the misunderstanding of the cars. Now that the logo
perfectly represents our idea of having a group of cars carrying out the travel, this makes our
logo easier to understand when taking into consideration what our initiative hopes to do.
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Phase 2
Questions
1. From the identified general problems from your chosen location in phase 1, include additional
support that shows/proves that these are indeed significant problems for the area. You will need
to include detail such as: data, community feedback, cost, etc.
One of the major problems in Baltimore is transportation especially for commuters. Last
year, the Opportunity Collaborative, a project of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, found the
average commute for citizens in East and West Baltimore to living-wage jobs was 90 minutes
each way. (Budish) This is a terrible statistic especially when compared to the rest of the united
states because according to the US Census Bureau is 25.4 minutes. This is what our main
motivation and goal, we want to fix our cities serious transportation issues. And with our
initiative we plan on greatly improving this statistic.
2. Discuss why and how your initiative proposes to solve or improve these issues?
We plan on taking on these problems head on. With our initiative we will set up a fleet of
cars as an alternative travel method to public and private commuting. This system of carpooling
will help to eliminate traffic on the road as well as bypass the inefficient bus system. We plan on
creating a private transportation company and marketing to large employing companies.
3. What technologies will be needed as part of these solutions? What are the requirements of
using these technologies? (Be as specific as possible)
Technologies needed in our solution is the use of RFIDs to make payment easier when using
our car services. Our general idea for our company was too cliché meaning that it mimicked too
much of regular public transportation. It didn’t show a unique difference from the public
transportation provided by Baltimore. Our focused switched to mainly working for companies
who need transportation for their employees. This idea then lead to focusing on switching our
transportation idea into carpooling with 24/7 service and having “bus passes” through RFIDs on
smart phones making it easier to identify the employee who rides our services (security measures
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and to keep track of who rides our services). Issue that is mainly seen in the Baltimore City area
is the lack of transportation in and out of the city. Most jobs are in the city and transportation
given by the Baltimore city imitative lack to provide efficient routes to bring employees around.
With our company we’ll try use technology to measure the amount of surface we would need to
cover to get workers around. This would efficiently track the most frequently places workers get
picked up and dropped off also the times they would be in need of ride in order to create accurate
routes for our car services.
4. How does it compare to your competitors? If there are no competitors or other similar
initiatives, then be sure to state this in the report.
Our competitors would be public transportation already provided by Baltimore City and
also carpooling services such as uber and lyft..And majority of the time are available 24/7. The
downfall about these services is: 1) The price of these services when getting in and out the city.2)
Safety and Liability.3) Accuracy. Although these carpooling services are available, the question
is are the affordable and efficient? Our services will be working hand in hand with companies
that these employees work for. We would organize a way to efficiently get these employees
around whether they are on the clock or not. We as a company want provide a safe, efficient and
reliable service.
5. Will your solutions require usage of existing infrastructures, or implementations of new
infrastructures? Explain.
Our solution to the problem of transportation for city workers will heavily rely on the
existing infrastructures of Baltimore City as well as some small new implications. First because
the foundation of our solution is to provide transportation to workers, our company will be using
almost all of the roads found in the city to navigate. Along with the roads, traffic lights and all
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the buildings in the city will also impact our drivers commute times and must be taken into
consideration. New implications into the current infrastructure is a goal we have set to increase
out overall efficiency. With the right amount of funding or grants from the city it will be possible
to get our own lanes or share private lanes with the current bus system. Lastly all of our cars will
be need to be GPS tracked so we will need to add to the existing infrastructure or use the drivers
mobile phones to update the customers on current locations and traffic delays.
6. What are the projected estimated costs? Will you need specific resources/ software or
hardware? Be detailed—show you did your research!
Estimated costs for our business will come from many different factors. The costs will
come as gas, car maintenance, and salaries and wages. The average cost of a gallon of gas in
Maryland is $2.519 with an average of 31 minute commutes to work in Baltimore. We estimate
that the monthly cost of gas for a driver will be $120. To keep costs exact each driver will log the
miles they drive and gas reimbursement will be factored into drivers salaries. All cars in the fleet
have the potential to break down so we need to be prepared to face maintenance costs. A separate
fund of $25,000 will be permanently set aside and kept full for all possible car problems that
could occur. Salaries of the average driver in the BMORE Fleet will be $70,000 a year with
increases in wage for experience. The company will offer three different types of ride passes to
the customers. A one month pass will cost $120, a three month pass will cost $350, and finally a
one year pass will cost $1300. The RFID technology we plan to use should be relatively
inexpensive and online accounts can be made to keep track of a riders history and make sure the
pass isn't abused.
7. Are there any particular partnerships within the community that would be needed or helpful in
order to achieve this goal? What research did you to determine who this might be and why?
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There are two main partnerships that would be most helpful. Some sort of collaboration
with a used car dealership, or used car auction to supply the company with cheap reliable cars.
The second would be to have some sort of maintenance package with a repair shop to service the
vehicles. Both of these partnerships could be maintained with a local city business. There are a
vast array of used car dealerships, auctions, and repair shops within the city. Also, local
businesses in Baltimore, such as Exelon, attorney’s offices, among others, would be the
businesses that would be participating/partnering.
8. Are there certain regulations or laws that need to be considered if your plan goes into effect?
Show that you did research to determine how and whether this might be the case?
Laws pertaining to proper business protocol are a requirement to follow for any business.
As far as what we are trying to accomplish with our start up, the biggest things to be aware of
would be proper inspection and registration for our vehicles, and proper licensing of our drivers.
9. Who would be impacted most by your project? Elaborate and provide sources to support
claims made.
Mainly businesses in the city because our goal is to have some type of deal with them
where they can get a membership and our services will be offered to all employees. It impacts
even younger people who may not be in a business who may be too young to drive they can use
or service to get to their job.
10. Do you feel that there would be any side effects of your project? Explain.
Our only side effect is lack of youth because of our focus on businesses. Another problem
would be lack of supply for vehicles which all can change after we grow as a company.
11. How will your initiative get the supplies and resources it needs to implement your proposed
project?
This comes back to partnering with local businesses to supply the vehicles and
maintenance for the vehicles. Physically going to the different businesses to connect with people
that would want to participate in our venture would be one good way to gain resources.
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Reflection
Each member of our group was responsible for a different set of questions, which are:
Emily: Revision of Part 1, and Reflection,Jamauri: 9,10, Michaela: 3,4, Matt: 1,2, Nick: 5,6, TJ:
7,8,11. The most difficult part of this project stage was coming up with a full concept for the
initiative. While we knew what we wanted to achieve with our initiative, there were many things
that we had not thought of before, such as budgeting and getting the cars that we need. Thinking
of all of the things that would go into our initiative caused a struggle, that we had to work to
think about in this section. We also redid parts of our initiative, as now we have cars instead of
buses, so also having to come up with new ideas for what we are now doing, and having to
change what we had already thought of before was something that was difficult for us. We would
appreciate feedback on any areas needing improvement, but feedback would be especially
helpful in understanding if our initiative is something that would be able to work for the public,
and if we have the right ideas that would be needed to put it into place. This feedback on if our
initiative is in working order will help us moving forward in understanding what would be
needed to be fixed in order to make our initiative useful for the public.
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Sources
“List of Baltimore Neighborhoods.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Oct. 2017,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Baltimore_neighborhoods.
“Transit Maps.” Transit Maps | Maryland Transit Administration, Maryland Department of
Transportation, www.mta.maryland.gov/content/transit-maps.
“Bus Stop Optimization.” Bus Stop Optimization | Maryland Transit Administration, Maryland
Department of Transportation, mta.maryland.gov/content/bus-stop-optimization.
“Commute Times in Your Area | WNYC.” Project.wnyc.org,
project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html.
Budish, Jimmy Rouse Robin. “A Vision for Public Transit in Baltimore.” Baltimoresun.com, 18
Jan. 2017, www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-transit-fix-20170118-story.html.
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