Hack the Beach 2017 Contest Sign-up
Sep 01, 2017
submission
#61
Submit your idea
Your idea/ technology/ company
| Name of your idea or project | Transit X: Flying solar pods |
| Which challenge area does your idea respond to? | Place and Planet, Economic Opportunity |
| Describe your idea and how it can help Santa Monica | We made a 3 minute video (watch at https://vimeo.com/229657936) that provides a good overview of the problem and our solution. Santa Monica has terrible traffic congestion and parking issues. Commuters don't embrace public transit because it isn't very convenient. Pedestrian safety is a major issue. Extending traditional rail is extremely expensive and may take decades. Santa Monica suffers from "roads disease" and needs to rapidly move to a walkable, car-free community. Transit X offers a viable approach to making Santa Monica car-free within 5 years. Transit X is a sustainable, personal mass transit network with the cost, capacity, and convenience to supplant cars, buses, trains, and trucks. We aim to complete our full-size demonstration in early 2018. Highly Viable Transit X is based on a proven concept that has been in daily operation for 40 years. We have assembled an experience team and partnerships that have designed, built, and operated similar automated transit systems. Altran is our global engineering partner that has performed an extensive analysis of Transit X and wrote a Statement of Technical Feasibility. We are working with several private equity firms and investment banks who are interest in financing our projects. We have quotes from our major suppliers, and Altran is preparing fixed price contracts for the certification, design, installation, operations, and maintenance. Although, Transit X may look futuristic, its design is based on well-proven systems and architectures. It starts with showing a full-size demonstration in early 2018 to help educate and build support for Transit X in the community. Providing Enormous Value Transit X will help address key issues around traffic, parking, air quality, carbon emissions, and open space. It requires no public financing for the capital costs or operations. In fact, Transit X pays 5% of gross revenue to the city, but even more valuable is the land space that opened up for use as green space, bike lanes and wider pedestrian walkways. Local businesses thrive when cities become walkable. Creating a walkable, car free city would further enhance the desirability of Santa Monica while enabling it to easily accommodate more people. Enables Growth and a Car Free Future Our proposal will start to move Santa Monica towards a walkable, car free city within 5 years — with a much higher quality of life. It starts with something the city controls: air rights above municipal roadways. |
| What stage is your idea or project in? | Prototype / MVP built |
| What needs to happen to launch your product? Please list all resources (hardware, software, licensing, legal/regulatory, funding, partnership or support from the City, data, etc.) required to launch your program. | Transit X has a recommended process to work with municipalities that is documented at: transitx.com/process We have prepared a preliminary proposal for Santa Monica that shows a 38 mile network with 120 stops that places 95% of the population within a 2 minute walk. We would like to present the proposal to the city and ideally meet with the mayor, city councilors, and staff responsible for economic development, transportation, sustainability, planning, and/or public works. A 27 page Handbook (transitx.com/transitxhandbook.pdf) provides many more details about the company, the technology, and over 30 topics from aesthetics to security. To secure project financing, our financiers need to see a resolution or ordinance that provides air rights and an operating agreement with the city. An example can be seen at transitx.com/process We ask the city for a letter of intent that says the city is open to receiving an unsolicited preliminary proposal, and that the city will work towards an operating agreement that includes air rights. We would work with the city to refine a 15 to 30 mile network for a first phase, as well as identifying locations for one or more 1-2 mile pilot projects. The letter of intent let's us work on getting a financing commitment for the project. Once we sign an agreement with the city, we work to close on the financing and start the manufacturing and installation. |
| How realistic is it for your idea to be implemented by early 2018? Please describe what resources (if any) you will need in order to ensure a working product by early next year. | We propose to install a full-size demonstration system in Santa Monica in the first quarter of 2018. We would need to receive a letter of intent from the city by November 1, 2017, followed by an operating agreement that includes air rights within 90 days. A demonstration system could be temporarily or permanently installed dependent on the available financing. This would get the whole community excited about the future of a walkable and car free Santa Monica. If there was no financing available for installing a demonstration, a demonstration would be setup in another city. |
You and your team
| Team Name | Transit X |
| List team members and their roles | --- |
| Contact email | --- |
| Phone number | --- |
| Primary Contact Name | --- |
Initial application scoring
Scoring
| Viability (40%) | --- |
| Value (40%) | --- |
| Growth (20%) | --- |
| Notes | --- |
| Advance to semi-finalist status? | No - if no, HALT PROCESS |