Over recent years, ambitious and headline-grabbing solutions to transportation problems have been unveiled in South Florida, from vertical jet ports to autonomous vehicles.
While most have never been rolled out to the public, one low-tech micro-transit project has been quietly succeeding in filing in some public transportation gaps and getting people around their neighborhoods — for free.
Almost a decade and a half after launching in Miami Beach with just six electric vehicles, Freebee now operates in more than 50 communities and delivers more than 2 million rides per year. The company was even named one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States by Inc. 5000 after posting 172% revenue growth over the past three years.
It all began when two University of Miami graduates remembered how they struggled getting around town and tried to address this gap in the market with a key innovation: free local rides on demand, covered by advertisers.
“ We were doing it more as kind of a novelty,” Freebee co-founder Jason Spiegel told WLRN.
“We had big brands like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Verizon pay us to wrap these vehicles. In return, we were able to provide this really cool, free transportation service to the public there. So, it was born out of a need of, ‘Hey, there's really not many transit options. What can we do to kinda help fill that gap?’”
In the advertising deals with Coca-Cola, for example, the cars would promote a drink and passengers could get a free sample. Spiegel said there are still cars that offer these sample refreshments today — you just have to keep an eye out for them.
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The projects started as a "flag-down service," where you had to wave-down a Freebee cart or call the number to catch a ride. In 2015 — following the examples made by Uber and Lyft — they launched their app.
For the first few years, the entire service was primarily funded by the advertising space Freebee would sell on the cars themselves and it didn't take long for them to expand from South Beach to Brickell.
But around 2017, Spiegel said that he and fellow co-founder Kris Kimball found the desire for that affordable and accessible transportation took the company in a different direction.
“ We had the village of Key Biscayne reach out to us and they asked us, ‘Hey, listen, we love what you guys are doing on, in South Beach and Miami Beach there. Could you provide that service to us?’”
Their partnership with Key Biscayne shifted the company model towards government contracts that would fund Freebee like any other public transportation system. “[It] pivoted many times along the way to kinda get to where it is today as a true public transit service,” he said.
Some things haven't changed: Freebee doesn’t take people in between cities — the designated service areas are limited to neighborhoods — and any ride could have other passengers.
But some big changes could be coming in the future. As it works to stay relevant in the market place, just last month Freebee merged with autonomous technology company Beep.
'It's in the name'
Freebee has already expanded across the U.S. Southeast to more than 50 municipalities, campuses and business districts, with a fleet of more than 300. Now combined with Beep, the new company will operate in more than 60 communities, and employ nearly 1,000 people.
In Florida, Freebee cars, carts and vans can be found from the Florida Keys to Lake and Orange Counties.
Elvira Casal, 78, and her husband Tony, 84, spoke with WLRN during a recent Freebee ride in Coral Gables from the Miracle Mile district to their home. The most compelling factor of Freebee for the couple?
“It’s in the name: free,” Casal said.
Casal said she and her husband have been using Freebee since it first came to the city in 2017. The couple said they don’t go out as much as they used to, but that Freebee helps them get from their home to businesses and restaurants on Miracle Mile.
“ It's very good. It's very convenient,” Casal said. “I think it's a great thing. It's one of the things that I tell my friends about who don't live in this area. I tell them, "We have this [and it's] really an asset for the community.”
Spiegel said that an experience like the Casals was exactly the goal when Freebee made its contract with Coral Gables.
“How do we get customers to businesses? How do we promote these businesses? And that was one of their main goals in bringing in the service there,” he said. But that’s not the goal for every city.
In Coral Gables, Freebee does not necessarily solve the “last mile connection,” the journey between transit routes like buses and trains. In other cities however, Spiegel said that Freebee was designed to do just that.
In Florida City, for example, "we wanna connect to jobs, we wanna connect to mass transit, the grocery stores, the hospitals," he explained. "Totally different type of means, but operating in the very same essence."
In cases like Miami-Dade County where transit fares will rise by 50 cents next year, affordability remains the top compelling factor when deciding between transit options.
Real need for real people
Although the company recently merged with an autonomous tech company, driver Ezequiel Rodriguez still feels that for the specific clientele Freebee tends to serve — especially in Coral Gables — there is a real need for real people.
“In the case of Freebee, we need human drivers,” said Rodriguez, who drives in seven different cities in South Florida. “We have a lot of elderly people. We need to help with the walker, with the groceries. A child, we need help with the booster seat, you know?”
"All our drivers are very good, nice people,” he added.
A concern about what autonomous driving might change for drivers like Rodriguez is a real one, however. The self-driving Waymo cars have been testing and operating in Miami for nearly two years. Other robotaxi services like Zoox, Tesla Robotaxis and Beep's own shuttles are also testing in the Miami area.
Spiegel said it won’t be launching self-driving Freebee cars any time soon — but that future does exist down the pipeline. He said the motivation behind the Beep merger at this time is to be “future-proof.”
“ Ultimately, over time, we're gonna be able to deliver the same services in a much more efficient, safer and cost-effective manner. So that's really kind of where we see the future of this partnership going,” he said.
