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The world is entering the golden age of embracing Mobility as a Service (MaaS), with cities around the globe turning to shared bikes, scooters, and on-demand vehicles to move around their communities.
Perhaps one of the biggest trends in MaaS, however, is the dramatic adoption of shared on-demand transportation. Previously, individuals were likely faced with two often unappetizing choices: either sink enormous sums of money into owning a car, or spend valuable time navigating bus travel that may be inconvenient, if available at all.
The result: overall transit ridership has declined by nearly five per cent over the last decade, driven by a cumulative 15 per cent decline in bus ridership over the same period, according to KPMG.
That’s why many cities are considering dynamically routed, demand responsive transport (DRT) solutions, which blend the best of public transport with ride-hailing’s most popular features. Travellers can request an inexpensive shuttle that picks them up at a nearby corner within a few minutes. Vehicles are then dynamically routed to the final destination, picking up other travellers heading in the same direction along the way.
On-demand transport networks can either blanket a whole city or work in tandem with existing transportation infrastructure, acting as an on-demand link to high-frequency transit hubs and light rail stations.
The idea is nothing new, but the task is difficult to perfect. Dial-a-ride services like Australia’s Telebus offered “on-demand” rides a decade ago, but customers needed to book 24-hours in advance, and it was notoriously unreliable, and failed to gain traction with riders. In New York City, lawmakers are calling-out Access-A-Ride for failing to provide anything close to high-quality service for its 170,000 paratransit riders.
For transit networks to effectively reverse declining bus ridership, they’ll need to design a bespoke service that meets the unique needs of their riders.
Every city is different, and therefore has specific and unique problems it is trying to address with on-demand public transportation.
Cities like The Ponds, NSW and Cupertino, California offer concessions for students, seniors, and those with disabilities, often cutting ride costs by 50 per cent, or making them entirely free for qualifying riders.
In the Boston suburb of Newton, MA, the city launched a new on-demand transport service called NewMo that caters specifically to its growing population of seniors over 60 years old. To accommodate seniors with limited mobility, NewMo includes wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs), and all vehicles are retrofitted with a stepping stool and additional handles to facilitate an easy and safe boarding experience.
In collaboration with Newton’s Senior Center, all drivers provide high-touch support, including proactively assisting riders with bags and automatically opening the van’s sliding door upon arrival. Plus, in recognition of lower smartphone adoption among older adults, the service allows riders to book on-demand or pre-scheduled rides through the mobile app or over the phone. All phone operators receive senior sensitivity training, including expectations to speak slowly and repeat instructions.
There is no clear blueprint for developing a DRT service, and that each one can and should be quite different in order to make it successful.
The first step of building an on-demand transport service is choosing the right operational boundaries. First determine what the goal is: to operate a first- and last-mile network around transit hubs, fill transportation gaps on weekends, cater to weekday commuters? What the service aims to achieve will paint a picture of where to operate.
But be careful: bigger isn’t always better. The larger the zone, the larger the number of possible route combinations. That means doubling the size of the service zone may necessitate tripling the number of vehicles on the road to maintain the same quality of service.
The shape of the service zone also plays a role. A square or circle may seem right in theory, but it may be harder to aggregate shared rides compared to a more strategic zone that captures riders travelling in the same direction.
Next, it’s important to consider quality of service metrics like the time it takes a vehicle to arrive and the distance riders could walk to meet their drivers for pickup at a virtual bus stop.
Via’s data shows that first- and last-mile commuter services, or those in urban environments, carry an acceptable wait time of about 4-6 minutes. However, for rural areas, wait times closer to 15 minutes can be acceptable, as other public transportation alternatives can easily be an hour if they exist at all.
Once an appropriate wait time is established, determine the acceptable walking distance to a virtual bus stop. On-demand mobility deployments can be drastically streamlined if riders walk a short distance to meet their driver, but the acceptable distance is impacted by a number of variables, like steep terrain, extreme weather, or target population (e.g., if the service is primarily geared toward the elderly). If the service is catering to those needing wheelchair access, maybe meeting at a virtual bus stop isn’t an option at all.
These service decisions, designed with the rider in mind, as well as choosing the type of vehicles and number of drivers, can quickly contribute to building an on-demand service riders love.
Because the new on-demand system can act as an extension of the greater public transportation network, the price of rides should reflect other modes of transit. For example, in Seattle, on-demand rides are automatically applied as a transfer toward a trip on a bus or a light-rail train.
And while riders can pay through the app with a linked credit card, it’s vital to ensure the service can accept a variety of payment methods such as cash, voucher payments, or a full integration with the transit system’s native payment system.
King County Metro and Sound Transit fully integrated their new on-demand mobility service with the transit system’s ORCA Card, allowing customers to use a single payment method across the full King County transportation network. On-demand rides are automatically applied as a transfer toward a trip on a bus or a Link light rail train.
In suburban Sydney, the service Cooee Busways became one of the first demand-responsive transportation providers in Australia to fully integrate with Opal Connect, a new account-based ticketing system by Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW).
It’s one thing to power a dial-a-ride service with a few vehicles; it’s another thing entirely to power a demand-responsive transport service at scale with dozens or even hundreds of vehicles delivering hundreds or thousands of rides every day.
The ability to do the former usually doesn’t transfer to the latter — as the number of vehicles and rides increase, the number of possible rider/vehicle assignments and routing options grow exponentially, which requires both an algorithm and automated service management tools built to handle scale.
It’s also important to note that not every mobility technology company chooses to share their data. Some guard it closely in the name of protecting key business indicators like revenue, pricing models or demand from competitors, or in order to shield their actual environmental impact.
But those that choose to share data do so in the name of helping municipalities and transit agencies create a better place for everyone to live and work. By partnering with a company that agrees to share its data, cities can maximize the value of the on-demand transport service — because with so many ways to use the data, DRT isn’t just a transportation improvement; it’s a way to improve the entire municipality.
Powering a flexible service that is continuously optimized in real-time is a big technical challenge. Transit agencies should find a partner who is not only up to the challenge, but proven in multiple markets they know how to deliver results.
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Via has been tapped by cities and transportation players around the world to help re-engineer public transit from a regulated system of rigid routes and schedules to a fully dynamic, on-demand network. To learn more about Via, visit www.ridewithvia.com.
David Wall Country Manager AU/NZ / Via Country Manager AU/NZ / Via
David is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history launching hyper-growth SaaS startups in Asia Pacific Japan and emerging markets. He has an extensive background in SaaS, IT solution sales, territory management, end-user prospecting, competitive engagements, complex contract negotiations, third-party software partnerships, creating and executing a channel strategy, recruiting, building and leading a diverse driven team.
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