Organizations located in suburban or industrial areas underserved by public transit often face issues getting their employees to and from work. Their employees have stressful commutes that involve multiple transfers between buses, rail, and by foot. This case study highlights how RideCo delivered a new on-demand shuttle solution for employees of a multinational logistics firm, using 13-seater shuttles.

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Here’s How it Works

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• Employees use a mobile app to book a ride that is pre-scheduled or on-demand between their workplace and home.
• Employees are transported in 13-seater shuttles that pick them up from their workplace and drop them off at one of 1500 virtual stops near their home. No transfers are required.

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• A typical rider shares her or his ride with six or seven co-workers. The average in-vehicle ride duration is 36 minutes. This is only 10 minutes longer than a direct solo ride. The RideCo platform ensures the riders’ time in vehicle is constrained to ensure a smooth travel experience.
• Shuttle routes are dynamically generated in response to actual trip bookings. This ensures superior vehicle utilization, increased geographical coverage and service frequency, and reduces operational costs.

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The following video demonstrates the service model, with anonymized data.

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The service was successfully adopted by staff within two weeks. Riders now commute with less walking, no transfers, and shorter travel time. Using 13-seater vans instead of 4- or 6-seater sedans allowed the organization to increase pooling and reduce operational costs.

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Background and Challenge

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A multinational logistics firm was located in a low-density, peripheral area of Singapore, far away from high-density residential areas where many of their employees lived. This created challenges, as:

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• Employees faced challenges getting to and from work and were frustrated. The employer was geographically far from the city center and thus, employees were underserved by public transit. To commute to work, employees had to make multiple transfers on transit across different modes including bus, subway, and walking. Furthermore, the employees were spread out across a large city (~700 square km / ~270 square miles).
• The long, inconvenient commute lowered the productivity and quality of life for employees.

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The employer approached Grab, RideCo’s client partner, to leverage our dynamic shuttle platform to operate a commuter service for their employees. Specifically, they were interested in using larger vehicles — such as 13-seater vans — in order to limit operational costs. The service would pick up employees from work and drop them off near their home.

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The service would:

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• Use 13-seater vans, instead of 4- or 6-seater sedans, to limit operational costs.
• Be time constrained; in other words, trips could not take substantially longer than a direct car ride.
• Dynamically route the vehicles and be responsive to actual trip bookings. In other words, the routes can look different every day, and can change in real time as last minute bookings may be made.
• Automatically bill ride costs to the organization, so that the employees did not have to pay to use the service.
• Need to be flexible, easily replicable, and scalable to respond to employee demands and changes.

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RideCo, together with its partner Grab, worked within these constraints and delivered a transit solution for the multinational firm.

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Service Model

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The shuttle service runs daily, operating in the evening rush period, picking employees up from their workplace and dropping them off near their home. There are 1,500+ virtual stops, located near the employees’ homes, where they can be dropped off.

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Per the organization’s request:

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• The shuttles achieve a vehicle utilization of six or more occupied seats per dynamically routed run to ensure financial viability.
• When searching for a ride, riders are directed to a nearby virtual stop, to ensure routes and pooling are efficient. The virtual stop is selected dynamically by analyzing existing ride bookings, vehicle routes, and potential route adaptations to determine the most optimal virtual stop.
• The in-vehicle journey time is constrained to ensure that the dynamically created ride pooling and vehicle routes are sensitive to passengers’ commute time.

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Results

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• Employees across a large city now have a commuting solution that involves less walking, no transfers, and shorter travel time. This has increased their quality of life significantly.
• Riders adopted the new service within two weeks, which prompted the client to add more shuttles to support growing ridership.
• Using 13-seater vans instead of 4- or 6-seater sedans allowed the organization to increase pooling and reduce operational costs.

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Key Takeaways

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RideCo’s dynamic shuttle platform enables organizations to provide cost-effective and user-friendly commuter solutions for their employees. Leveraging larger format vehicles, such as 13-seater shuttles, allows for greater pooling and lower operating costs. The platform constrains in-vehicle time for riders to ensure timely commutes and greater rider satisfaction.