Bee-Line On Demand: Delivering Innovative Electric Mobility to Peekskill
Peekskill is a thriving community of 24,000 residents, located on the Hudson River. However, the City is home to only about 1/5 as many jobs as residents. Despite most jobs requiring a significant commute, most households in the area have zero or one vehicle. Electric vehicle (EV) adoption has been low to date, meaning those residents who can afford a car must consume fossil fuels to commute to work.
To improve transit and foster electric mobility, we will introduce a new on-demand transit service using EVs, and make significant investments in publicly-accessible charging infrastructure in Peekskill. Bee-Line On-Demand will provide fast and easy transfers to the Bee-Line bus network to increase access to jobs without increasing emissions. Key metrics will include:
- number of low-income residents with access to electric mobility
- number of charging stations in Peekskill
- Utilization (rides per vehicle-service-houry)
- number of jobs accessible within a 45-minute commute
Within many areas of the County, and particularly in our pilot area of Peekskill, inadequate transit coverage means limited opportunities to reach jobs, schools, and other ladders of economic opportunity. In fact, preliminary analysis using Via's Remix planning tool shows that in some areas, fewer than 5,000 jobs are accessible within a 45-minute transit commute -- for a population of almost 25,000.
Bee-Line On Demand will strengthen connections to existing Metro-North rail and Bee-Line bus services to fill these gaps in access. Residents will be able to plan and book multimodal trips by entering their origin and destination into a new Bee-Line-branded mobile app or by calling the customer service center. Using Via's technology, the app will return an itinerary using a combination of dynamic microtransit and fixed route options, designed to minimize trip time and GHG emissions. The app itself will be fully accessible, with a phone line available to riders without internet access or smartphones.
Riders in similarly-oriented services experienced a gain of more than 80% in the number of jobs accessible within a 45-minute transit commute from their homes, as the service provides additional mobility options and makes it easier to reach existing transit options, and we anticipate that Peekskill riders will experience similar benefits.
The team will also endeavor to make charging stations available to the public when not used by the Bee-Line On Demand fleet to further support EV ecosystem build-out in Westchester.