ATLANTA, GA and DELANO, CA and BAKERSFIELD, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 5, 2016) - Two small urban California transit agencies have improved performance and reliability as well as accommodated ridership growth by applying innovative intelligent transportation systems (ITS) technologies provided by RouteMatch Software.
Kern Transit and Delano Area Rapid Transit both face challenges of how to grow and enhance ridership service within their respective small urban communities. On the Fixed route service side, some of the challenges these agencies face include: how to appeal to university and business riders, improve on time performance, and acquire data to make more informed decisions. On the demand response side, they entail how to lower demand response costs while providing high quality first and last mile service as well as how to accurately and quickly pull and dissect reports to meet Federal Transit Administration (FTA) guidelines.
Kern Transit - 60 Buses Covering a Large Area with Inter-Regional Transportation
Kern Transit, based out of Bakersfield, covers 8,000 square miles (a service area approximately the size of Massachusetts). The agency, which operates two additional locations in Lake Isabella and Mojave, provides bus service on 17 fixed routes and 6 demand response services, connecting outlying areas into Bakersfield. Without ITS technology, the agency was lacking insight into how the system was performing and gaps existed in overall operations.
With Prop 1B funds, Kern Transit implemented RouteMatch's Fixed Route and Demand Response enterprise platform for their fixed route service, Dial-A-Ride demand response, and a complimentary commuter service for medical appointments -- all of which run on the transit agency's 60 vehicles. With this move to dynamic scheduling and dispatching, the agency can now monitor headways, input driver breaks, and see where the bus is in real time.
"This is the beauty of RouteMatch: I can log-in from wherever I am and immediately see where a fixed route bus is and gauge its on-time percentage. We see patterns and can make decisions to improve service," explains Bob Neath, Manager over Kern Transit. "When we first started our agency, our schedules were all loops and now we are making them point-to-point which has improved our reliability. We now can adjust based on real data instead of anecdotal information. Our drivers and riders see the difference."
Kern Transit additionally uses RouteMatch Cloud Services for their hosting and data warehousing needs. "The Cloud was a huge selling point for us and a better situation than us having to build and maintain our own internal infrastructure," says Neath.
In the near future, Kern Transit plans to unroll RouteMatch's RouteShout real-time traveler information smartphone app to their community. Other larger goals include continuing to expand first mile and last mile services and partnering with other neighboring transit systems and businesses to extend its services to business commuters.
Delano Area Rapid Transit - Small System, Small Staff - Achieving Big Efficiencies
Delano Area Rapid Transit replaced an existing, larger ITS software provider to run its fixed route bus service and Dial-A-Ride service with RouteMatch.
"RouteMatch's Support team is highly responsive, and we like the care we receive," said Daniela Ruiz, transit dispatcher for Delano Area Rapid Transit. "The platform does so much more. We've experienced 80% in time savings for both verification and for reporting."
With dispatchers dually running demand response and fixed route operations, having a single technology provider and platform was important to Delano Area Rapid Transit as staff members would frequently have to wear multiple hats on the job.
"Getting data out of the system is very easy. I have been able to query data for transit planners, and split up and combine data sets in no time," said Viviana Zamora, Transportation Manager at Delano Area Rapid Transit. "Our on time performance on our fixed route service has increased on some routes 3-4% and on others by up to 18%. We have also used data to determine where to best place our bus shelters based on true passenger pick up information."
The agency also now uses RouteMatch's RouteShout traveler information system to appeal to college and high school students with smartphones who commute into Bakersfield. The transit agency has found these riders have become more engaged with the agency since the introduction of this technology, grooming the next generation of riders.
"Kern Transit and Delano Rapid Area Transit exemplify how transit agencies can more effectively serve their communities and control costs with flexible technology. We are committed to long-term innovation in technology so we can grow with public transit agencies' needs as well as the evolving demographic and economic changes that occur within communities," says Teague Kirkpatrick, Sales Director at RouteMatch Software who works closely with many California-based transit agencies. "It's exciting to see how far we all have come together, and even more so for the future. We're very proud to be partnering with such visionary transit leaders and their teams."
About Kern Transit
Kern Transit provides passenger bus service between and in the rural communities of Kern County. There are 17 fixed transit routes, and Dial-A-Ride (DAR) service is available in most communities. The transit system offers intercity service between Arvin, Bakersfield, Bodfish, Boron, Buttonwillow, California City, Delano, Edwards, Frazier Park, Inyokern, Keene, Kernville, Lake Isabella, Lamont, Lebec, Lost Hills, McFarland, Mojave, Onyx, Ridgecrest, Rosamond, Shafter, Taft, Tehachapi, Wasco, Weldon, and Wofford Heights, along with local transit service. Connections to Metrolink in Lancaster are also available. Kern Transit is a division of the Kern County Public Works Department.
About Delano Area Transit
DART provides fixed route bus service on four routes and demand responsive public transportation service (Dial-A-Ride) to the citizens of Delano and citizens residing within the immediate county area surrounding the city within the boundaries of State Route 43 to the west, County Line Road to the north, Pond Road to the south, and Kyte Avenue to the east.
About RouteMatch Software
RouteMatch Software is the leading provider of passenger transportation technologies that help transform rider experiences and engage communities. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, GA and works with more than 600 transit agencies across the U.S. and internationally, providing quality software and award-winning customer service. A team of more than 160 professionals who are passionate about transit address industry needs such as routing, scheduling, dispatching, billing, reporting, CAD/AVL, demand response and fixed route integration, traveler information services, mobility management, business analytics, and automated fare collection. Additional information about RouteMatch's ITS technologies are available at www.routematch.com or by calling RouteMatch toll-free at (US) 1-888-840-8791.
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Media Contact:
Brooke Phillips
RouteMatch Software
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P: 404-253-7839