The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District was awarded $2.25 million from the Clean Mobility Options program to launch a pilot project, Ecosystem of Shared Mobility, which will provide San Joaquin Valley residents with new modes of travel, while also reducing air pollution and GHGs emissions. The pilot project consists of multiple components: an electric vehicle car sharing program called Míocar, a volunteer ride program, and a smartphone application called Vamos that brings together planning, reservation, and payment for travel across cars and buses.
The San Joaquin Valley covers most of Central California. Many residents living in rural parts of the San Joaquin Valley need reliable transportation but have limited access to clean transportation.
The Míocar car-sharing program enables residents of Arvin, Lamont, Wasco, Cutler, Orosi, and Visalia to reserve one of 24 electric vehicles for $4 per hour or $35 per day. These cars have access to 34 parking spaces for charging that are distributed across eight affordable housing complexes.
Laura Aguilera, a Dinuba Sierra Village resident, appreciates the convenience Míocar provides. “It was fun to drive and very easy to get in and out of, even with car seats for my kids, making emergency trips to the store easy and enjoyable,” said Aguilera.
The San Joaquin Valley volunteer ride program provides free rides to residents in disadvantaged rural communities in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. Volunteers provide free rides to help residents access essential services, such as medical appointments, when transit is not an option. To book a ride through the program, residents simply book reservations through the Vamos smartphone application.
The Vamos application can also be used to easily plan and pay for multiple travel options throughout San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties through a single digital service. This includes fixed route transit service (e.g. buses) and on-demand transit services (i.e., dial-a-ride, deviated shuttles, microtransit), with real-time arrival information, when available. The application can also provide estimated travel times for bike routes.
“The Vamos app came at the perfect time when the San Joaquin County was developing an integrated ticketing app,” says Diane Nguyen, San Joaquin Council of Governments Deputy Director of Planning, Programming, and Project Delivery. “This innovative technology will transform the transportation experience for transit users, and we expect it will spur more people to ride buses and trains.”