Quadrant #3: Explicit Space + Implicit Time

Landscape Architecture (explicit space, implicit time)

Industry website: http://www.laprofession.org/practice/process.htm
Paragraph overview:

• The process of landscape architecture involves numerous processes. Depending on the scale of the project and type of customer, a landscaping service can be completed in 2 hours or two months; processes on the part of the landscape architect range from site analysis to feasibility studies to completing a master plan; clients vary from residential homeowners to commercial companies to industrial enterprises. With landscaping services, the possibilities are endless. Landscape architecture fits in the category of explicit space and implicit time because landscaping services are typically provided to a client based on their explicit space specifications, but time is implicit since plant growth is taken into account as well as changing artistic vision between the client and architect.

4 companies:

• ServiceMagic (http://www.servicemagic.com/rfs/aboutus/howItWorks.jsp)- This company is an intermediary in the distribution process of contracting. It connects homeowners to prescreened service professionals, who then negotiate further with clients. How it works is that a customer searches online for a contractor and finds ServiceMagic. The customer then fills out an online interview with project details. ServiceMagic matches the customer with a landscape architect bases on the project details, and sends the request to up to 4 architects' e-mails and cell phones, and the customer selects the right professional. This company manages space and time uniquely because it allows the customer more control of the space requirements through the initial interview, and allows architects to evaluate their own time requirements to see if they match with the client's desires.

• EDSA (http://www.edsaplan.com/)- EDSA's expertise is evident in their portfolio of completed projects around the world. This firm focuses on serving larger clients such as resort destinations, residential communities, urban redevelopment, and corporate campuses.Team leaders collaborate across distances with a keen attention to detail, which enhances the quality of the project. This company uses this attention to detail and its elaborate portfolio to leverage its use of time: "We keep our clients goals on the forefront and a defined yet flexible end-point on the horizon." By letting clients know up-front that time should be flexible, it allows EDSA to maintain more control over the end-date.

• Private Landscape (http://privatelandscape.com/)-Private landscape is in many ways a standard landscape architecture company in which the customer designates a specific space, and the project is completed during a certain range of time. However, as this firm works with many smaller customers (residential), customers usually prefer exact end dates. To contribute to the concept of implicit time, Private Landscape offers maintenance service, which allows their services to be ongoing, with an intangible end date.

• Chamberlin Landscape Online Design (http://www.chamberlinlandscape.com/design.html) - With Chamberlin Landscape, the services offered are twofold: The designers of the company use site maps of your property to design a landscape; they also offer consulting services to help customers evaluate bids from architects as well as ideas for the site design. The company makes a unique use of space in that the site is evaluated online and the original design is also done through the internet. Chamberlin Landscaping offers the latest in Internet Landscape Computer Imaging 3D Modeling and C.A.D. Because of this service (plans submitted and altered through the internet), they charge for their internet services by the hour. More advanced CAD design gives more time flexibility (basic drawings are by the hour, more detailed drawings are sold for a "Max designer time of [x] hours").

Cab/Taxi Companies
Industry Website: http://premium.hoovers.com/subscribe/ind/fr/profile/basic.xhtml?ID=187
Paragraph overview:

• Taxis or cabs are a form of transportation that give the customer the most freedom in space--they allow customers to get from one distinct location to the exact location that they desire to go.While this is customer-specified space in terms of what the customer is purchasing (exact locations), the cab company has control over the atmosphere in the vehicle, or generally the "space" of the vehicle itself. Time is implicit; A customer knows where he or she wants to go, but not how long it will take to get there. Taxis transport customers after being dispatched as per customer request or reservation.Taxis also pick up passengers that hail them on city streets or taxi stands.
  

(above) - a meter in a cab

4 Companies:

• New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/passenger/taxicab_rate.shtml )- New York City yellow cabs are known for their enforcement of regulations in regards to rates, so customers are loyal. NYC Taxi uses revenue management to optimally set prices so that their drivers do not feel the need to break regulations and set their own prices. Not only is classic taxi rate-setting used (per mile), there are also price changes to account for heterogeneity in the transportation process. For instance, units are measured in miles if the cab is going at a certain sustaining speed, but the units are measured in minutes if the cab is stopped or is traveling at under 6 miles per hour. Also there is a surcharge for late-night and early-morning travelers who are more price inelastic (at these times in NYC, public transportation is stopped or slowed greatly, so a cab may be their only option).
  

• Regional Transport Office (Chennai, India) (http://www.tn.gov.in/sta/vehicles.htm#Autorickshaws and http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/why-autorickshaw-rides-cost-a-fortune/405514/)- The Regional Transport Office in Chennai, India, supplies permits to the many drivers of autorickshaws. While autorickshaw drivers are required to put meters in their vehicles, this city (as well as several others in India) is known for lack of enforcement of regulated fares, and what leads to a bargaining between customers and drivers. Although the drivers there are known to be among the worst in the world (in terms of arbitrary and illegal fare hikes), the root of the problem seems to be a revenue management issue. The problem is that government regulated fares are so low per kilometer that if using mandated fares a driver makes very little for the distances driven. Not only could fares be increased, but methods could be instituted to legally charge higher fares during busy times of the day or in traffic, or charging a base fee.

• VIP Taxi (Moscow, Russia) (http://www.vip-taxi-moscow.ru/en/ and http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/01-10-2008/106508-moscow_luxury_taxi-0)- VIP taxi makes the most of the space that it does have control over--the car itself. This company has recently begun offering its services to wealthy Muscovites. The service has only luxury cars in its car fleet - Maybach, Rolls-Royce, Maserati and others. The choice of a luxury car depends strictly on the amount that a passenger would be ready to spend for a ride, Newsmsk.com reports. Since the company does not have much control over space, and time can be uncertain, and the cost of the vehicle needs to be considered, the way they charge is per hour. Instead of a meter that measures distance, their units are time.

• Ithaca Cab Company (http://www.ithacataxi.biz/pricing.html)-The City of Ithaca has a fare structure which divides the city into "zones". Therefore the fare you pay is dependent on the zones in which your travel will take you within the city limits of Ithaca. This structure therefore does not require the use of a taxi meter to determine fees. Customers can obtain price lists online if they are traveling outside of the city of Ithaca, but will remain in Tompkins county. So pricing is based on distances from dispatch, since most passengers call ahead rather than "hail" cabs in Ithaca, NY.
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