In May 2015, Fast Company wrote:
Public transit, with $40 billion in funding every year, is unlikely to go away anytime soon. But integrating new technology may help it keep more customers, get more people out of cars, and keep a vital service efficient for those who can’t afford other options.
Providing reliable and ample access to transit for riders is one of the greatest challenges facing transit agencies today. Sprawl and exponential population growth have made it difficult for agencies to keep up. Our goal is to help agencies offer fast, reliable transit options that are flexible to individual needs and are simple to implement and operate—hence, OnDemand Microtransit software.
Existing fixed route-based transit systems are just that: fixed. Currently, demand must respond to the availability of the transit options, as opposed to a healthy economic model in which supply responds to the demand.
There are plenty of advantages to fixed-route transit systems, not the least of which is operational simplicity. But we challenge transit agencies to think smarter, to ask themselves “what service options do riders want?” as opposed to “what service options are the easiest for us to deliver?” Look no further than the success of Uber, Lyft, and various other on-demand transportation options to understand that this is the direction in which the world is headed and there is now legitimate competition to traditional public transportation.
We built OnDemand to not only help transit agencies capitalize on this future, but to do so in a simple, dynamic way. Want to offer full on-demand service to your customer base? No problem. Only want to provide demand-response service between specific, pre-defined locations? Done. Need to explore solving the first-mile / last-mile problem? We’ve got you covered.
OnDemand’s integration with both the Microtransit app and TransLoc’s other products allows agencies to anticipate needs in real time, providing a more cost-efficient and streamlined system that enables better access to transit.