Driver’s Seat
Model & Strategy
Driver’s Seat is a driver-owned cooperative that empowers ride-hail drivers and on-demand delivery workers to use shared data ownership to make the gig economy work better for themselves and the communities they serve.
Driver’s Seat has developed an app to collect data from on-demand drivers in order to a) return it to drivers in the form of actionable insights to optimize their earnings; and b) sell the collected data to local and state government for use in planning and design, policy creation and enforcement (DaaS).
Hays Witt, co-founder, is a long-time progressive organizer and a subject matter expert in the new mobility and future of workers. He has led organizing projects and policy initiatives for community based non-profits and worker organizations, and has consulted for the cities of Portland and Seattle.
Co-founder Matt Schumwinger is a data scientist who has consulted with cities and labor advocacy. He studied labor economics and labor relations at Cornell University and devoted his early career to organizing low-wage workers across the United States. Matt founded the analytics firm Big Lake Data in 2013.
Impact
Driver’s Seat empowers ride hailing drivers to know their worth and maximize it, as well as capture the value of the data they create. When Driver’s Seat turns a profit, the driver-owners benefit through dividends.
The analytics sold to city planners and agencies help result in better transportation planning decisions about congestion, pollution, and affordable transit.
