This content is provided by Montgomery County Department of Transportation.
The Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) launched a new Ride On bus trip planning app in partnership with a global mobility and journey trip planning app company, Moovit. This innovative app gives riders the ability to plan their next trip with more specific information about bus timing, locations, routes and crowd monitoring.
The Ride On Trip Planner app provides riders with more accurate departure and arrival times and more precise locations for pick up and drop off, so they can choose the route that best fits their travel plans. It also shows riders alternate routes including other modes of transportation. A web-based version of the app is also available.
The app also has a crowdedness indicator so riders can tell how full a Ride On bus is before it arrives. The crowd monitoring feature allows riders to choose if they want to board the bus arriving, wait for the next bus, or choose another travel option, including other local transit services, bikeshares and scooter options. It gives riders more control over their transportation experience. The app also includes a dashboard for the Ride On Central Communications team to monitor bus loads and more quickly dispatch additional buses when needed.
The app is easy to use and can be downloaded from the Google or Apple store. Riders start by choosing their current location and their destination and then pick the route that is most desirable. Once the route is chosen, the app will give a precise time when the next bus will arrive and provide instructions on how to get to the bus stop and how to get to the rider’s destination after getting off the bus. The app will also notify riders when it is time to get off the bus, so they can relax or browse other apps without having to worry about missing their stop. The app was created to give riders more control over their bus experience, reduce stress and worry about bus times, and to continue to reduce the spread of diseases with the crowdedness indicator.
The app is funded by a federal grant to help the community travel in a more efficient way. This partnership is a two-year pilot to test the combined Ride On passenger load and trip planning functionalities in Montgomery County.
In addition to ride planning, the app also features accessibility capabilities to better serve people with disabilities, including blindness or low vision, ambulatory impairments, hand-motor disabilities, enabling them to use public transit easier and more confidently. It also provides features to guide riders along their chosen route, including “first mile, last mile” directions to a selected bus stop, and push notifications when they have arrived.
Moovit’s leading public transit app provides real-time transit arrivals and directions, trip plans, service alerts and Get Off alerts through the free smartphone and web app, making traveling via public transit easy and convenient. The Moovit technology has more than 1.7 billion users in 112 countries, 3,500 cities, 7,500 transit agencies and in 45 languages.
