Disadvantaged Community of Palo Alto, CA to Receive Child Transportation Service from MB

In what can only be described as a purely altruistic gesture, Mercedes-Benz is rolling out a new service in the California slum of Palo Alto. The program is designed to help parents who are too busy waiting for venture capital funding to come through or purchasing food at the local organic, farm-to-table co-op (cause, you know Whole Foods is soooo commercial expensive) by chauffeuring their children around town.

The service is called Boost and at its core consists of a bunch of Mercedes Sprinter vans equipped (probably with a paddy-wagon style cage and hose-able interior) to haul the unloved children of the community from one after-school activity to another in order to keep the little scamps from starting a Facebook competitor. Mercedes is billing this is a “youth transportation service” and has been studying its potential at MB Research and Design North America.

While it promises “White Glove” custom transportation as well as licensed and well-trained drivers, it is still unclear whether that licensing includes child-care. If you live in Palo Alto and are too busy to attend to your children (the word ‘mistake’ doesn’t really capture the gravity of your lack of forethought, does it?) you can sign up online at the Boost site, just be sure to enter pick-up and drop-off locations at least 48 hours in advance. There is also a smartphone app and an SMS based service for monitoring.

Following is the press release:

Mercedes-Benz revs up youth transportation market: Youngsters on the road with Boost by Mercedes-Benz

Busy schedules and the stress of scheduling for today’s youths seem to be part of the daily family life. The recently launched pilot program, “Boost by Mercedes-Benz” in Palo Alto, California, addresses that challenge. This youth transportation service is designed to transport children safely and reliably to and from the educational and recreational activities that fill their day. The initiative is a project of Business Innovation at Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America, Inc. which looks at future trends and develops solutions such as “Boost by Mercedes-Benz”.

“Boost by Mercedes-Benz” uses environmentally friendly Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans, and provides high-level, ‘white glove’ custom transportation for children by virtue of well-trained and fully licensed drivers and concierges.

“We know how important it is for children to balance school and extracurricular activities,” says Regan Long, Business Innovation Manager and Boost Program Lead at MBRDNA, “it can be very tough for parents to get their kids from place to place — safely and on time. Our goal at Boost is to make parents’ lives easier, while enabling children to participate in more activities.”

After a simple registration, parents can reserves rides for their kids online at www.boostbybenz.com . The service covers Palo Alto; one-way rides can be purchased individually or in discounted bundles.

At least 48 hours in advance, the parents select the pick-up and drop-off location for their kids along with a time window for each stop. The Boost app and text message service can then notify parents when their children are picked up and show them where their children are en route. “Boost by Mercedes-Benz” utilizes GPS-enabled tablets on board the vehicles that makes all this possible. “Innovative technology is the backbone of our white-glove service,” says Long. “We’ve created a seamless system that handles route planning, notifications, and updates. This allows the staff to focus on what is most important, our children.”

“One of our goals in Business Innovation is to change the way people think about transportation,” says Rasheq Zarif, Senior Manager of the Business Innovation Team. “With Boost, we already see this shift taking place, and we’re excited to see how this mobility service evolves.”
About Business Innovation

Business Innovation initiated in 2007 is Daimler’s ‘think tank’ for innovative solutions beyond the core business of car manufacturing. The team deals with future trends and technological, social and cultural developments to create profitable business models. Tested and evaluated on a pilot basis, success stories like car2go and Mercedes-Benz Driving Academy started here as proof-of-concept projects and have subsequently become prosperous businesses. Business Innovation teams are also located at the headquarters in Stuttgart, in Beijing, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Sunnyvale, CA. Business Innovation at Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America, Inc. started in 2012.