[vel0city]

Most of the time these are replacing areas with bus lines with small ridership. Its cheaper and on average faster to service those areas with this model instead of driving a lot of empty busses around constantly. If ridership increases to the point where busses again make sense I imagine they'll resume bus service to those areas.

Some of the transit around me had areas change to this model. I know people who used to ride the bus and now take this. Being able to dispatch a ride (and even schedule one a day ahead of time!) makes things a lot easier, more reliable, and faster. Previously they would have to walk a few blocks to the main street and wait in the 100F weather for up to 10-15 minutes. Potentially they'd have to change busses depending on where they were trying to get to, often having yet another wait in the 100F weather. Now they're able to schedule their ride ahead of time, the car meets them outside their apartment, and they're able to get a ride directly to nearby shops or the light rail/major bus terminal to get someplace else.