University of California Transportation Center

Electric station cars have the potential of filling an important market niche -- namely, providing on-call, door-to-door access to and from rail transit stations as well as midday automobility for those who patronize transit. They would make getting from home to work via rail transit virtually seamless. Their greatest promise is in the suburbs. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are thousands of jobs beyond walking distance of suburban BART stations. Given the choice of driving from home to work or taking BART and transferring to a bus to reach jobs, most suburban workers choose the former. The availability of free parking at the workplace and the generally poor quality of many suburban bus services reinforce this overwhelming preference for solo commuting.