The app-based company is called Go360, and the cost to subscribe its service is $250 a month. For that price, the subscriber along with family and friends can take up to 124 rides a month.
The service is experimental, and hasn’t yet gotten state permitting in place. Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Sravan Puttagunta said he expects state Public Utilities Commission approval later this month, which would allow Go360 to start paid subscription service.
The service, which joins a quickly expanding base of alternative transportation modes in Sacramento, will be notably different from Uber or traditional taxis. The ride starts and stops will be limited initially to downtown, midtown and East Sacramento. Users are essentially monthly subscribers who just pay one time per month.
Users will be allowed up to four rides per day, but can assign some of those rides to family and friends, as well.
Rides will be shared or pool rides with other subscribers. The company’s focus will be to take people to and from work downtown, as well as short trips to light rail or the downtown train depot. The service does not extend to the airport, but could eventually if the business model works for that.
“Our main market is the daily commuter,” Puttagunta said.
Puttagunta said he hopes the company will appeal to people who want to live a greener lifestyle by riding in an electric car, sharing the ride with others, and combining the Go360 ride with transit rides on some trips. The company hopes to use computer analysis to position its employee drivers so that the distance they travel alone is low. That has been a complaint against Uber and other ride-share companies whose cars have swamped some major city streets, causing more congestion.
Go360 has a few drivers behind the wheel of Tesla models, but its fleet also is likely to include other types of all-electric cars.
“Our pooled rides feed people to rapid transit street cars and subways. This improves the efficiency of all existing transportation systems, reduces traffic and helps the environment,” company officials said in a press statement.
Puttagunta said his company also will be using in-car technology to help digitally map the Sacramento area in preparation for the day Go360’s cars could function autonomously.
City officials have been pushing to make Sacramento a testing ground for that technology.
“The shift is starting,” said Barry Broome, head of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, which helped recruit the firm.
Go360 advertises a maximum wait time for a ride as five minutes, and said rides typically will be short-duration, less than 15 minutes. The service is initially planned to run seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
If the Sacramento launch goes well, company founders say they plan to expand to Davis, south Placer and other local areas. Expansion to Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland in the East Bay is also part of their plan.
Puttagunta said his company chose Sacramento as its launch city because it has a high usage of rideshare, including electric bike and scooter rentals.
©2020 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
