Parents Struggling with Child Transportation Obligations Have New Ridesharing Options
Every parent knows the challenges of transporting their children to and from school and activities. Managing the transportation needs for a family is a never-ending chore that can be even more complicated for working parents. Grant Harrell, host of Are We There Yet?, spoke with Rebecca Lock, Founder & CEO of Kidcaboo, regarding the evolution of ridesharing for children and families.
Lock spoke to what inspired her to establish the Kidcaboo ridesharing service. Having formerly worked in both NY and LA as a reality and documentary producer for 15 years, she took a few years off after her second child was born. When both kids were old enough to go to school, Lock was eager to return to work and had an amazing job offer on the table. The only thing stopping her was securing transportation for her children.
“It sounded simple enough and I was willing to pay well but despite that fact, despite a very expensive search, I was unable to find somebody to simply drive my children to and from their nearby school,” explained Lock. Unfortunately, the inability to find reliable transportation ultimately forced Lock to turn down the job offer.
She decided to investigate the situation further. “I looked into the problem, and I did about 800 drives to understand it and the market, etc., and learned it was a huge problem that really affected the lives of working parents. And Kidcaboo was born.”
Lock went on to note that ridesharing works very well in America and is now a staple of adult life. She also thought parents and children would benefit from a ridesharing service dedicated to them but that it needed to be reimagined to address safety, consistency, and reliability concerns.
To address these issues, Kidcaboo created a system where the same driver would show up every time and utilized technology to give parents and caregivers access to live GPS tracking and dashcams that are operational throughout the duration of a ride. In addition to that, Kidcaboo created “a very complex ride monitoring system that takes place beyond what parents themselves can track just to really ensure the safety of every ride.,” said Lock.
Apps bring everything together to provide parents easy access to scheduling, dashcams, and more. Kidcaboo is presently operational throughout Texas and has received the licenses required to begin operations in Arizona. And there are more states on the horizon.
