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How Moovit is Partnering with Transit Agencies to Overcome COVID-19 Challenges

Published: April 4, 2020

Public transportation has come to a near standstill as the coronavirus takes hold around the world. Between constant new government restrictions and social distancing becoming the norm, ridership has been in free-fall for weeks now, at a decline of between 50% and 90% around the world. There is very little idea of how long the current situation will extend. 

Transit agencies are now faced with low ridership, low employee counts, and the continued need to serve essential workers that require a way to get to their workplaces quickly and safely. 

They need to adapt their systems now in order to continue running. Now is the time to make public transportation more resilient and flexible. Moovit is here to support you – whatever you need. All of these solutions are currently implemented around the world, and we are wholly prepared to help your agency optimize your services now to better respond to COVID-19.

Communicating Changes with Riders

A major challenge facing transit agencies is making sure riders know what and when services are still running. Real-time communication with riders is key during situations like these, as agencies make hundreds or even thousands of route and schedule changes quickly. At Moovit, we call these short-term changes. 

Short-term changes are deviations from the static General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), normally used for closures, construction, events, weather, and the like.  They allow agencies to communicate service and route changes as they come up, instead of relying on updating open data that can take a long time to process. The essential employees taking public transportation during COVID-19 are exactly the people that need the most updated information on how to get to work. 

Moovit’s Transit Data Manager helps transit agencies implement short-term changes quickly, allowing agencies to create service alerts and deploy changes in routes and schedules instantly, with easy exports to other services for a streamlined workflow. Riders are informed in real-time through either the Moovit app or push notifications, keeping those who rely on public transportation in the loop, all the time. For operations centers whose employees are currently working remotely, the web-based platform enables them to continue their duties, wherever they are.

We’re offering our Transit Data Manager for free to agencies for 3 months to enable you to deploy and communicate your changes quickly and easily. 

Want to try it out? Fill out your details here

Receiving Real-Time Support 

With so much uncertainty in these times, it’s important that agencies and businesses get the support they need to keep their infrastructure running and getting essential workers to their jobs. Moovit understands the need for 24/7 support – and we’re committed to supporting our partners whenever they need it. We have a dedicated global operations team for round-the-clock support. Whether you need to implement short-term changes or send push notifications to riders’ smartphones, the Moovit team is here to support you. 

Becoming a Lifeline for Essential Workers

As cities around the world began to shut down to the public, the need for public transportation to essential businesses, such as hospitals, grocery stores, and banks, to continue and serve essential workers was obvious and necessary. 

We’ve already helped several cities and large corporations leverage existing fleet and infrastructure for a totally new, on-demand service. Essential workers can use an app to request service on-demand in their city, safely sharing rides with others to get where they need to go, with no fixed routes or schedules. For optimized service, we help operators distribute their fleet to serve their expected number of users in different areas, and enable them to modify their services based on demand and current local regulations. 

For businesses that don’t operate their own fleets, we’ve helped them connect with providers to serve their employees with the help of the Moovit app and support team. 

 

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