Need a ride to the airport?

Use PlanetTran! Or you could ask me :) But honestly, PlanetTran is probably a better choice.

PlanetTran is a taxi/limo service that drives Toyota Prii (that's the plural of Prius) to save you money and help the environment. Basically, PlanetTran's advantage over regular taxis is that it saves a ton on gas because the Prius is so much more efficient than standard taxis, and so it can charge you less and provide better service.

I discovered PlanetTran a couple years ago when I was traveling to Boston a lot, and I used it to get rides to and from the airport every time I flew there. The prices are the same or better than regular taxi services, the service was better (more like a limo service than a regular taxi!), and the drivers are usually cool to talk to because they are into saving the environment. They also use a bunch of cool tech to improve the experience: the car usually has a gps nav system so the driver doesn't have to memorize the road system, you can make reservations online (or by calling), they keep your credit card on file so you don't have to worry about cash, and they just announced that they have in car wifi!

I met the founder, Seth Riney, a couple times when he ended up as my driver (this was a couple years ago when the company was still really small and had only a couple cars...I don't know if he still drives these days). I got him to tell me a bit about how he founded the company and the business plan behind it. One thing that impressed me was that he said that the main hurdle in starting the company was all the bureaucratic hoops he had to jump through to start a new taxi company. Another thing I remember is that he had worked out this cool mathematical model of flights arriving to and from airports and he had based the business around this model in a way that cut costs even more. Here is a video of an interview of Seth that Clean Air - Cool Planet put together:

Interview of Seth Riney about PlanetTran


What prompted me to write this post today is that PlanetTran just announced that they have entered the bay area market. This is very exciting for me, because now we (myself and all you readers here in the bay area) can use PlanetTran whenever we go to and from the airport. Here's the email announcement I got:

Dear PlanetTraveler,

We are now serving the greater San Francisco Bay Area! We will begin transfers between points in the Bay Area and SFO, SJC, and OAK airports Monday morning Jan. 22, 2007. Pricing information is available on our homepage at http://www.planettran.com. Reservations can be made, as usual, at http://reservations.planettran.com.

Additionally, we would like to invite you to connect your wireless device to our in-vehicle Wifi access point next time you are traveling. Your device should be able to find 'PlanetTran-XX", the SSID of the access point in the vehicle. In addition to the internet access for passengers and drivers, the vehicles now report their position to a central server. Applications being developed by PlanetTran Labs are already making our service the most efficient and reliable in greater Boston, and the same will be true in San Francisco!

As always, we welcome feedback regarding service issues of all kinds. To that end, we have provided a Feedback link from your Reservations Control Panel. Feel free to offer suggestions, ideas, constructive criticism, compliments and support as you feel necessary!

Lastly, we plan to work w/ other organizations with similar sustainable vision in this New Year, and would like to communicate these relationships, along with news and accolades about PlanetTran, to you. However, we realize your privacy is important, so we are developing a separate list for items not directly related to our service. Please use the link below to opt-in to our News and Offers mailing list.

Stay tuned for additional service updates in 2007, as we have big plans for expansion to other markets this year.

Regards,

PlanetTran Management

So next time you need a ride to or from the airport, check these guys out. I highly recommend them!

Update (2007-01-28): I should check my facts better before blogging. A number of people have informed me that PlanetTran is very expensive compared to regular taxi services in the bay area. For example, the PlanetTran quote I get from SFO airport to Menlo Park, CA is $95. Chris, a friend of mine, says he can get a Town & Country towncar (a limo service I think) for $60 for the same trip:

dude.. planetTran is cool
but 94 to sjc and 99 to sfo
is super expensive
I can get you a town and country towncar one way for 60 bucks

Another friend of mine, Amit, says he can get a regular taxi for the same trip for $35 with a coupon. So PlanetTran is clearly not a cheap taxi service here in the bay area.

When I last used PlanetTran in Boston in April 2006, going from Logan airport to Mather House (a Harvard dorm), PlanetTran charged me $33, as you can see in this email reciept:

This message is to confirm that a transaction has been successfully processed by Planet Tran, LLC.

Please do not reply to this message. This is simply a courtesy confirmation for your records and security.

Order information is as follows:

Amount: $33.00

Description: 4/30/06, Mather House to logan

For Logan to Harvard, $33 is as good or better than the regular taxi fare. However, it appears that PlanetTran has raised their fares since then (quote obtained from planettran.com):

Estimated One-Way Fares between BOS and 10 Cowperthwaite St., Cambridge, MA 02138: $56

Or maybe I was getting some sort of discount and just wasn't aware of it.

In any case, PlanetTran is still a cool company, but not one I can recommend to my friends right now given how expensive their current fares are. Public transportation or mooching off friends still seem like the best alternatives.