On-Demand Microtransit Model Gets Traction 

Acquired by Ford Smart Mobility in early 2018, TransLoc’s accelerating growth is being fueled by a reimagining of public mobility within transit agencies as cities embrace economic growth, equitable mobility for every citizen and the creation of smarter, more sustainable cities now and into the future.

“While ride-hailing services, such as Uber and Lyft, have demonstrated to transit agencies that on-demand services can be successful, other attempts to help transit agencies bridge the gap have missed the mark,” said Doug Kaufman, CEO of TransLoc. “We are taking a fundamentally different approach, and clearly the market is responding. This next generation of microtransit is designed to empower transit agencies to be central to new on-demand services, with improved convenience and reliability that have begun to bring new riders to public transit.”

TransLoc’s approach, which enables transit agencies to be central to new flexible and on-demand microtransit services, is attracting cities from across the U.S. at an accelerating pace. TransLoc is currently partnered with more than 40 cities—by far the largest roster of any microtransit company in the industry today.

One of the earliest adopters of TransLoc’s agency-owned approach to microtransit, Sacramento Regional Transit District (SacRT), recently announced an expansion of its microtransit pilot service called SmaRT Ride. Within six weeks of the service’s launch, SmaRT Ride expanded from its original service area to include several additional suburban towns and points of interest to meet rider demands. SmaRT Ride ridership has increased by almost ten times more than previous service levels. As a result, SacRT launched the next phase of SmaRT Ride in mid-summer, further expanding services into other diverse communities around Sacramento.

“The transition to this app-driven on-demand service has completely changed our transit system and made it viable for all of our residents,” said Steve Miller, Mayor of Citrus Heights, California in the Sacramento metro area. “The feedback’s been fantastic, SmaRT Ride has really been received well. We’ve seen our ridership numbers grow. I like bragging that Citrus Heights was the first ever city-wide microtransit system, not only in the nation, but the world. We have to find ways to provide mobility in creative ways to our residents.”

As a result of SmaRT Ride’s success, SacRT was recently awarded a $12 million grant by the Sacramento Transportation Authority (STA) to promote microtransit service in residential and commercial areas that are underserved by public transit.

“One of the benefits of microtransit is that you’re not following our schedule. We’re, more or less, following yours,” said Mark Lonergan, Deputy General Manager and Chief Operating Officer at SacRT. “We all know how to run demand-response service. You need to be open to try and run it in a better way. And that’s what microtransit does. That’s what companies like TransLoc have to offer us: a better way to reach the public, to schedule their trips in a way that is very customer-friendly.”