Introduction

How did my trip from the airport to the hotel cost nearly as much as my trip from Detroit to Chicago?

Last mile travel

In transportation, the “last mile” refers to the final leg of a route. Last mile travel stands out as the least efficient: the least distance per cost and the least distance per time. This holds true because of how we design our transportation systems.

Hubs

In many transportation systems, many routes significantly overlap. For example, many people travel from the Detroit area to the Chicago area each day. With limited resources, you optimize by building hubs near the points of significant overlap. By selecting hubs this way, we can take advantage of economies of scale for legs between hubs. So many people travel Detroit to Chicago that airlines can offer cheap flights between DTW and ORD multiple times per day.

Spokes

After hub-to-hub travel, however, routes end at different final destinations. In Chicago, people leave the airport to go to their offices, apartments, and hotel rooms. This leg, the last mile, does not benefit from the economies of scale of hub-to-hub travel. So I ended up spending nearly the cost of the flight on driving to my hotel room.

Conclusion

In hindsight, Chicago has its own hubs: subway stations. I should've used those instead of a car; I would've definitely saved good money.