Smart Mobility for Business Districts and Employers

The Challenge

Western Digital, with 1,000 employees working in Kfar Saba’s high-tech park, approached the municipality for help with challenges faced by both employers and employees in the area. 

Employer Challenges

• Low number of parking spaces, leading to elevated parking costs
• High employee turnover because of commuting challenges
• High fleet management costs if they wanted to run their own shuttle service

Employee Challenges

• Severe traffic congestion at the entrance of the park during peak hours
• Lack of sufficient first-/last-mile and public transportation options
• Long commute times

Western Digital wanted to offer employees alternative methods of transportation that would encourage the use of shared transit methods to reduce reliance on private cars.

The Solution

We.Ride, powered by Moovit’s MaaS solution and managed by the municipality, was created to solve the above challenges. 

The We.Ride solution includes: 

• Moovit’s aggregated Mobility as a Service platform, including carpool and shuttle reservation software
• A white label Moovit app for the multimodal trip planner, which offers the best mobility options for each employee to commute to and from work, including carpools, shuttles, and public transit
• An e-Wallet solution that allows employees to commute without prepaying
  • Employers can choose whether to deduct transportation costs from the employee or subsidize their rides
• A budget management tool for the We.Ride management group and employers, offering deep visibility into how employees consume the service
• Third-party mobility solutions, including micromobility, taxis, and autonomous vehicles

Reasons for choosing Moovit’s White Label Application: 

• Ease of implementation and management
• A single mobility app for planning, booking, and paying for rides including park and ride options
• Power of Urban Mobility Analytics to determine the most efficient service areas

Results

The solution has helped turn the business district into an attractive place to work, saving employees precious commuting time on one hand and saving employers money on parking costs on the other. We.Ride’s management team now has visibility into traffic patterns in the area and can continue optimizing the We.Ride service, including the ability to add new employers and mobility options into the solution. 

• Introduction of 7 smart shuttles daily 
• Reduction of 6,250 private cars at the business districts’ entrance
• Total savings of over $23,000 a month on gas and time at work
• 46% user growth since program inception
• 22% average subscriber increase month-over-month
• Several neighboring companies have joined the program, including Nokia and Finastra
• Service expanded for Kfar Saba residents

About We.Ride

We.Ride is a MaaS (Mobility as a Service) platform, powered by Moovit, created to help reduce traffic congestion in commercial and high-tech areas by increasing and encouraging the use of smart public transport in collaboration with neighboring organizations.