 Welcome to Work Reimagine, streaming live on Think Tech Hawaii, brought to you from Honolulu, Hawaii. To launch the new year, I have renamed the show from Hawaii Reimagine to Work Reimagine to be more aligned with the show's focus on the future of work and workforce innovation. So yes, you're in the right place. And our show is really focusing on the massive disruptions to our labor markets due to automation and now the pandemic. On Work Reimagine, I talk to innovators and entrepreneurs who are creating innovative workforce solutions that help us navigate the effects of these disruptions and also make a positive social impact in people's lives. I'm Ruby Menon, your host. And my guest today is Sue Sani, the CEO of Dollar Ride, which is a Brooklyn based tech and mobility company. They created a smartphone app to unite over 100,000 daily riders living in communities that lack adequate access to public transportation by providing a private network of dollar vans. Their goal is to create a new brand new transit routes and introduce a mobile product to riders and drivers that will upgrade dollar vans services from the shadows. So I'll be talking to Sue about their company's mission to bring dollar van services into the communities and provide work opportunities for people that are also in these communities. So Sue, I am so happy that you're here able to join me and we've been talking about this. I met you at Elemental Accelerator at the TEDx. And soon as I saw your story, I thought, oh, God, you had Sue on my program. So we've been planning on this for quite a while. And I'm really excited about learning more about you and the amazing work that you're doing with dollar vans, because you guys are really solving a huge mobility problem for people living in these transit deserts. So Aloha and welcome. Aloha to you too. And thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm very excited to chat with you all today about what we're building with dollar ride and my story and our mission. So I'm excited. Thank you for the opportunity. Oh, yeah. Thank you for being here. So let's dive right in. I love to usually start with my guests a little bit about yourself, your career path, and then what led you to your work with dollar ride? Sure. So well, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and that's where I'm calling you all from today. So I'm a New Yorker through and through. I went through public high school here in New York, and ultimately started my professional career working actually on Wall Street. But, you know, it was when I was working at an investment bank. I realized that I lived in an area where my commute to work was really horrible. And when I asked around, you know, from my colleagues and people that I knew also in the neighborhood, I noticed that there was a huge difference in the way that people were commuting to Manhattan, depending on where you originated from or where you live. So long story short, in my particular neighborhood in Jamaica, Queens, most people actually took dollar vans from that area of Queens to the nearest transit hub where they can get into the subway and then actually get into Manhattan. So this service that I, you know, finally discovered called dollar vans was a last mile and first mile resource for people who lived in transit deserts or areas that are really far away from public transit. So this terminology, you know, something interesting because I've heard of food deserts, right? Because that's when you know that, you know, people don't have access to good, fresh, healthy, wholesome food. But this term of transit desert, I had never really kind of wrapped my head around. Can you tell us a little bit more about what is that? Like what does that mean exactly and how does that impact communities? Sure. Well, much like a food desert, a transit desert is the term that we use to describe areas that have limited or no access to public transportation. And, you know, in the United States, where we have, in most major cities, some type of public transit service, surprisingly, oftentimes hundreds of thousands of people live far outside of the city's public transit infrastructure. So you might find yourself commuting an hour and a half, two hours or more to get to the downtown area where there are jobs. There's, you know, more retail in stores and opportunities to buy the things that you need. So much like a food desert, a transit desert really represents a huge gap in people's mobility, as well as their opportunities to find access to jobs and other resources that they need. So ultimately with Dailarai, we're really focused on addressing that issue by providing transportation that's affordable and ubiquitous for people who live in these areas. Yeah, you know, it's just something that, you know, we take transportation for granted. Oftentimes, either we have cars or we have access to public transit buses and things like that. But I was thinking even here in Hawaii, the neighborhood that I live in, I have to have a car because I would have to walk 20 minutes in the rain, no sidewalks just to get to the closest bus. So I guess we have our own little mini transit deserts here. And it's something that I think is, we don't really realize that if people don't have that type of mobility, it doesn't allow the community to thrive. You know, there's a lot of barriers for the people that live in these communities. Is that what you found? That's precisely correct. You know, to actually make this even clearer, you know, for folks who may only earn, let's say $60,000 a year or less, owning your own car or living in an area where it is a transit desert and thus you have to spend more time or more money to travel to and from work really becomes a huge barrier and can be really stressful on your life as well as on your pockets. So this issue is starting to become more understood by, you know, policymakers and the private sector who's also involved in transportation solutions these days. But it's really a growing issue that is widening our gaps in public transit in all major cities around the US. So this issue isn't getting better. And even public transit itself is struggling, you know, to find ridership and to withstand the difficulties of the pandemic and its impact on people's mobility. So, you know, the issue is only getting worse. And, you know, my hope is that dial ride can play a big part in resolving it for a lot of people. Oh, that's awesome. Now, there's one thing that I was reading about in your literature where you were referring to dollar vans as shadow transportation, which was very intriguing to me. So I was very curious about what's the story behind that? What's the story behind that? Like, why are dollar vans in the shadows? Sure. I'm going to use a term or phrase that one of my colleagues, Professor Eric Goldwyn from NYU, would often say about dollar vans in New York. You know, he would say that they're hidden in plain sight, which is, you know, very similar to this concept of them being a shadow transit system. And basically what's going on is that only if you live in these transit deserts or in the communities that support dollar vans, would you ever be aware of them or know that they exist? So nine times out of 10, if you go to talk to any New Yorker, especially if they live in Manhattan, they have no idea what dollar vans are, where they operate, or how the service actually runs. But if you were to go to Jamaica Queens or Flatbush Brooklyn, and you talk to the people who live there, they are very familiar with dollar vans. So, you know, this kind of gives you an idea of why they're seen as hidden in plain sight or like this shadow network. Another reason, because of this terminology that we use, you know, dollar vans typically transact as a cash only business. So this is another, you know, quality of shadow industries or shadow businesses. Historically, the way you would actually get in and take a dollar van is by giving the driver originally one dollar. And then that driver, you know, takes you to your destination along a fixed route. So it's sort of like a bus service. But it's only one dollar at a time. And but you can get off and get on anywhere along the route. That's how dollar vans started in the 1980s. The price is no longer a dollar, but we all still call them dollar vans and they still operate along fixed routes. So this has been around since the 1980s. Wow, that's amazing. So really, what it sounds like is that you're bringing this concept into kind of the 21st century, because you have an app that and maybe we can talk a little bit about that because it seems like in some ways your app is mirroring or maybe modeling like the Uber or Lyft model. Am I exactly somewhat in the same same realm or I'm reluctant to say yes, because I do often fight to differentiate myself from Uber and Lyft. Yes. But what is true is, you know, Uber and Lyft have proven that through our smartphones, we can facilitate a great passenger experience when taking a shared ride. And that is something that we are perpetuating in the dollar van industry with my company, Dollar Ride. But beyond that, there are a lot of differences from Uber and Lyft, or we are very different from Uber and Lyft in a lot of ways. But, you know, at the end of the day, there are hundreds of thousands of people who take dollar vans or jitneys all around the US. And there's also thousands of drivers who participate in this industry. And they have been for decades. But what Dollar Ride is bringing to the industry that is unique and transformative is we're making the dollar van service more, how can I say, visible to the broader public. You don't necessarily have to live in these neighborhoods to understand how the service work or to actually be able to use the service. So by putting the dollar van experience into a mobile app, it's easier for us to promote this type of transportation service to any community that struggles with access to transportation. That was one of the things that I was very curious about because, you know, it's one thing when the community is used to this, and they know that it's a service that's within their community. And it sounds like in the 80s or before you guys came on the scene, that because it was a cash business, I'm assuming that it probably wasn't, well, I hate to use the word legitimate, but maybe not legal, right? Because it's like, you know, in New York City that the taxi drivers have to go through a brutal process just to get their cabs and the licenses and all of that stuff. And I'm assuming that prior to dollar ride, that wasn't the case that these people, you know, probably just drove their vans and it was all underground kind of. Is that the case? That is the case. You know, when dollar vans first popped up in New York City, initially, they were not considered a legal business. And, you know, there's a whole history behind the dollar van drivers and other supporters of this transportation service, you know, fighting with local city regulators to, you know, carve out a space within the industry that would legitimize this style of business. So I can easily say from like 1985 up until 1994, anyone who was doing dollar van work was actually doing, was operating a business that was considered legal in New York. However, in 1994, when we were under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, he actually was supportive of this style of business. And dollar vans became legal that year. And now dollar vans are regulated by the Taxi Limousine Commission and the Department of Transportation, the same regulators that govern the yellow cabs, Uber, Lyft, and all other livery services in New York. So times have changed. The history is definitely still a part of the story. Oh, wow, that's fascinating. So have you seen then that, what about user adoption? Because, you know, I think people are primed more to the Uber Lyft model. So have you, are you seeing that people are adopting this in the community? Well, especially I think like if you're doing the dollar vans in the community, that's they've already adopted it. But when you're going outside, what's your user adoption have been, have you had to do a lot of marketing or how have you been able to navigate that? Yeah, that's a great question. And it's this is part of what I think makes dollar ride unique and an interesting. So, you know, first and foremost, within the areas that already have dollar vans, you're exactly right. The people, the drivers and riders are already accustomed to this style of, or this mode of transit. So all we're really doing there is just empowering folks with a free mobile app that makes the service more transparent. You can now pay digitally if you don't want to if you don't have cash. And you know, that's that's kind of like the easy part, right? But when dollar ride attempts to create a new route in a neighborhood that's never had dollar vans before, this is where there can be a lot of friction. And to be honest, I was met with a lot of friction. When I first had this idea and was trying to introduce it to, you know, people in different parts of the city that weren't familiar with dollar vans. So if you can imagine, it's pretty hard to convince a random person to hop in some unmarked van that's claiming they're going to take you to where you need to go. So, you know, after realizing that, you know, that resistance, we had to become a little bit more, you know, thoughtful and cunning about how do we introduce this style of transit to people who've never had it before. And after lots of trials and testing different techniques and marketing, messaging, what actually worked was essentially getting our routes sponsored by a corporation or some local organization in the community. So to give you an example, you know, let's say the Hawaii Community Foundation wanted to sponsor a route in Honolulu that takes people from point A to point B. People might recognize the Hawaii Community Foundation because of their philanthropic work on the island and some of the things that they're doing. And that connection makes people a little bit more open to try something new. So that's basically the approach that we've taken in New York where we when we expand to new neighborhoods or especially when we expand to new cities, we use corporate clients and other better known organizations as sponsors. And they help with marketing the service to their community, which now helps us bring the service to people who've never had it before. Oh, that's so creative. So the corporate sponsorship then legitimizes this concept for a lot of people. Precisely. Yeah. That's great. Now I'd like to look at the flip side, which is right now we've been talking more on the supply side, which is, you know, you've got your riders, I mean, the demand side. And now the supply side, which is with your drivers, how can you can we unpack a little bit about the process for becoming drivers for dollar vans? Are they freelancers or are they employees? How do they get paid? You know, just some some of those those details about their experiences drivers. Sure. So in New York, dollar van drivers must obtain a is actually like four or five pieces of let's call it paperwork that you need to be compliant and legally operate this type of service. So a driver must have a commercial driver's license, commercial auto insurance, they must have their vehicle inspected by the Department of Transportation at least once a year. And then they need a TLC license, which is sort of like you probably heard of like the medallions like the yellow cabs would get. Yeah, yeah, which is basically a permit to operate that vehicle and to do this type of service. A dollar vans have the same thing. It's called a commuter van license. Fortunately, you know, these licenses don't cost as much as a medallion does. Yeah, but in essence, it's a permit to operate within New York City, picking up and dropping off passengers along fixed routes with a large multi passenger vehicle. So, you know, those four or five, you know, pieces of criteria must be, you know, the driver must have those things and must be all those things must not be required, expired in order for them to legally be operating in New York. So, so I gather then, do they have to own their own vans or do you supply the vans or how does that work for them? So, most drivers and by most I'd say 60% of them, they own their own vehicles. Okay. The remaining 40% of drivers will rent a vehicle from a fleet owner. So, someone else in the community, someone else that they've heard of or that they were introduced to who has, you know, a few extra vehicles lying around. And that's basically how the supply or the drivers get their equipment or their vehicles. They are, you know, borrowing and renting them from other folks or they might save up, you know, maybe $10,000 or so and buy a second hand vehicle from someone else, you know, soup it up, fix it up, put their own flare on it, and then they're off and running from there. Oh, so you can get into a dollar van that's got a bunch of bling on it, huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, tell me a little bit. I want to hear some of these stories like the human side of this, because I know that we were talking and you're saying that some of them really get into, because they have to differentiate themselves, right? Right. So, you know, for one, the drivers are not our employees. They are contractors. You know, honestly, I consider them really just small business owners or entrepreneurs. Most of them get into the business because, you know, this is an opportunity for them to make a living for themselves and their families. So they treat their vehicle, you know, much like an entrepreneur would treat their coffee shop, right? You're running it like a business. It's just a business on wheels. But nonetheless, since all the drivers are technically competing for passengers along these fixed routes, they do all sorts of things to differentiate themselves and try to stand out. So a lot of the drivers, especially if they're like the Jamaican drivers in New York, they'll be playing reggae music. They'll have lots of posters and signage of artists or things that are reminiscent of Jamaica. And that's a way for them to not only like pay homage to their country, but they know intuitively that a lot of the people that they're serving in Jamaica Queens are Jamaican or have some Jamaican descent. So they purposely showcase their culture and do things that create a stronger connection between themselves and their passengers. And, you know, uncoincidentally, this is the type of stuff that the passengers like. They like to patronize or become customers of their countrymen. So, you know, I saw these things and kind of understood it because I've been taking dollar vans for years. And, you know, my family being Nigerian or from West Africa, we have, you know, West African dollar vans in New York City too. So I try to lean into these trends and support them because this is what makes the service work. It gives it its charm. And I think it ultimately helps with ridership. Yeah. You know, I know that COVID obviously has impacted businesses all across the board. And so I was wondering if, well, if you can tell me a little bit about how COVID has impacted the drivers, do they have to take on less passengers or, you know, how they probably have to thoroughly clean their vans I'm imagining or what, how has it impacted them? Yeah. Well, you know, unfortunately, when the pandemic was really raging and when it started in the US, let's say around March or so last year, ridership in dollar vans went to nearly zero overnight. And that was a really scary point. You know, not only for our business, because we're, you know, building a solution for this industry, but, you know, personally knowing many of the drivers and having communication with them, it was a very difficult and scary time for a lot of them who rely on this work to feed their families. But, you know, once the lockdowns in New York started to loosen up and, you know, essential workers were given sort of like this pass and encouragement to, you know, keep going to work, we need you. You know, and in fact, the governor Andrew Cuomo made an announcement and it was a televised where he encouraged essential workers to take dollar vans, you know, during the nighttime or during their late night shifts, because we were shutting down the MTA service, our public transit service. So long story short, there was a very scary time when business was nearly at zero. But very soon after that, things started to pick up and, you know, through the endorsement from the state of New York, as well as dollar ride, bringing in corporate partners into the industry, we found a way to really stabilize things. So definitely a challenging time in 2020. But I think we found some ways to weather the storm and maybe come out even stronger than we were previously. Wow, that's amazing. Now, there's one quick question we have maybe about another minute. I wanted to find out what your take is on the self driving cars. You know, what we know that Uber's already looking at self driving cars. And how do you or do you think that this is going to impact dollar vans? You know, I do think it will eventually impact dollar vans and informal transit. So, you know, dollar vans don't only exist in New York, we have these same types of services in Miami, Baltimore, Atlanta, Oakland, and all over the emerging markets in outside of the US. This is like the predominant way that people get around. But ultimately, I think when autonomous vehicles are on the road, there's going to be a kind of like a cascading effect of adoption, where initially you'll see autonomous vehicles in a use case where the routes that the vehicle is going on is fixed. And it's not, you know, in a very busy crowded city like New York, which is, you know, difficult for anyone to drive in, let alone a computer. Right. So, I think ultimately there's going to have to be a transition that happens over a long period of time before autonomous vehicles are on the streets in a way that would impact the type of business that I'm in. But with that being said, I do know and believe that this type of technology is coming. And I do think it can be a force for good. You know, just because we have driverless vehicles doesn't mean that all drivers will be out of work. I'd like to think that the type of work that a driver will do will be different, not necessarily that they'll lose their job completely. We've seen this in the trucking industry in long haul trucking, where actually for several years they've been testing and implementing driverless vehicles along very long stretches of road. So, you know, a computer can go, you know, let's say 80 miles an hour for hours and, you know, maybe steer in and out of traffic if the traffic is relatively light and predictable. So, long story short, as when we're in situations where traffic is relatively predictable, simple to manage, those are the areas where I think we'll see autonomous vehicles first, but for the normal everyday commuting, especially in super busy cities like New York or Lagos or Mexico City, these mega metropolises, you know, it's going to take, I would guess, you know, 10 to 20 years before we would see autonomous vehicles in that context. So, I got a clock, you know, that I'm working against, but, you know, that's the world we live in. And now the first thing I was thinking about, a self-driving car won't have that personality of that Jamaican driver, you know, you're not going to be here in any reggae. You're going to miss out on all of that. So, yeah, on the human side. So, we're out of time and I wish that I had another hour with you because there's so much, it's such a fascinating story that you've got to tell with dollar ride and I wish you guys the best success. And actually, I think that Hawaii could probably use some of that too, because like I said, I live in a little transit desert myself. I wouldn't mind taking a dollar van. Well, we should talk about that. I'd love to figure out a way for us to do a pilot or, you know, do some testing of dollar van type of service out there. So, I'm all game for it if you want to have a chat. Oh, I'd love to chat about that. Yeah. So, also, I want to make sure that our listeners know how to find you and that's at www.dollarride.com. Yep, that's correct. And I guess they can find you on LinkedIn under Susani. Yep, Susani on LinkedIn and Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. It's at dollar ride or the Susani, T-H-E-S-U-S-A-N-N-I. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Sue. And thank you all for being here. Please check back for our next show on Wednesday, February 10th at 3 p.m. And until next time, please be safe and take care of one another. Aloha.