2 min read April 2023 — Jason Spiegel, co-founder and managing partner of Freebee, shared with Invest: the success story of Freebee’s on-demand, 100% electric microtransit service. He spoke on the goals of Freebee and how funding is sourced in order to positively impact the communities they serve. Environmental, economic and social advantages are all benefits Spiegel sees from Freebee’s innovative transportation platform.
What were Freebee’s key successes over the last year?
Over the last year, we launched 15 new contracts with different municipalities, universities, corporate parks and hotel resorts in South Florida, many of them right here in Miami-Dade County. We’re now operating a fleet of over 150 vehicles and moving over a million passengers a year in the Miami region. Also, by offering a fully electric fleet, we were able to prevent over 479 metric tonnes of scope 1 CO2e from being put into the atmosphere.
What role does Freebee play in the area’s transportation?
Miami has always had a very car-centric culture. No matter where you’re going, people are using their personal vehicle to get there. This brings about many problems for the communities that we all live in today. More vehicles on the road equals more traffic and congestion and less parking availability. Burning endless amounts of gas translates into more CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere. So the question becomes, how do you get people to leave their car at home? From my experience I believe there is only one way to do that, and that’s by providing them solutions that are just as convenient, just as reliable, just as cost effective and safe as taking out their own personal vehicle. With Freebee, we give people real reasons to leave their car at home. Being able to offer a free service that picks you up at your door, delivers you to where you need to go and provides a great experience along the way using an electric vehicle, this gives people reasons to ditch their personal vehicle. It’s made Freebee one of the most important pieces to the transit ecosystem here in Miami-Dade County.
Right now, we operate in about 22 different municipalities in Miami-Dade County, and what we’ve proven over these last ten years is that Freebee has been the most equitable form of public transportation. You have every age demographic, every socio-demographic of people using the service at all different times, throughout the entire day and into the late night. We are getting residents out of their personal car in some of the most affluent communities where people would never even think twice of using public transportation, and on the opposite end, we also operate in low income communities where many of these people don’t have the income to even own a car. The Freebee platform is equally providing value to all members of the community; connecting people to their jobs, their doctor’s appointments, local businesses, connecting them to transit and helping to increase the quality of life within all the communities we serve.
How does Freebee benefit communities?
We are on a mission to help make communities a place where you can come live, work and play without needing to own a personal vehicle. Being able to connect residents, visitors and workers to their community has helped provide that quality of life that has been missed across many of our cities. We are that connection, that missing link, and you’re seeing every type of person within the community benefiting from using Freebee. It’s enhancing the quality of life for all residents, visitors, workers, the local government, local businesses and even the environment.
What challenges do you face in spreading Freebee?
Every single community, both large and small, has the same set of challenges; traffic and congestion problems, parking issues, and increased pollution. Knowing that, I believe every city should be looking at implementing innovative transportation services like Freebee. The biggest challenge for us always comes down to the funding mechanism. Some of the smaller or lower income communities might not have the funding sources available today to be able to provide a service like this. Getting creative and helping our clients work through different solutions has been one of the keys to our success.
What is the role of partnerships for Freebee?
The service is funded differently within every single community. Most of the time funding comes directly from the municipality, either through the general fund, a transportation fund or an economic development budget. We also work hand in hand with the Florida Department of Transportation, who has been a great partner in helping a lot of these cities with grant funding. Specific to Miami-Dade County, we also have a half-penny transit tax that a lot of cities are able to use to help fund these services with the county. The Miami Parking Authority has been a great partner and is the funding source within both downtown Miami and in Coconut Grove. We also sell sponsorship on the vehicles for local businesses to partner in the community. A portion of this revenue goes back to the city to help offset costs and provide additional funding for expansion.
How is Freebee growing throughout Florida?
Right now we are growing faster than we can even implement service today. Each one of the services that we’ve launched has started as a 1-year pilot project, and we are proud to say that every single one of these projects has moved past the pilot phase and continues to grow every single month. This really speaks to the value that our service provides to our communities, from the transportation aspect, as an economic development driver and from the perspective of sustainability. The drivers of our service are a huge part of our program and are considered community ambassadors. These drivers are hired locally from the community, they’re W2 Freebee employees and they’re there to really make sure that the community is connecting in every way possible. Over these next 12 to 24 months, you’re going to start to see this type of service across almost every city in the state of Florida, not only in Miami-Dade County. We’ve already started to launch services outside the state of Florida as well.
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