University of Virginia
Case Study: University Fixed Route & On-Demand Service
University of Virginia (UVA) is home to more than 22,000 students and employs more than 28,000 people between the university and UVA Health, the largest hospital in central Virginia.
Students and employees navigate both campuses using the transportation services of University Transit Service (UTS). UTS offers fixed-route service during the day, and immediately transitions to their SafeRide on-demand service from midnight until 7:30 a.m., allowing for a flexible and seamless rider experience.
As ridership grew, UVA needed a better way for students to request rides without having to call a dispatcher and needed accurate, real-time data to aid with trip planning and rider communication.
TransLoc OnDemand allowed us to grow our SafeRide service to better meet student need. Having a tool that does most of the work for us has improved the flow of our whole operation.
Patrick Clark, Alternative Transportation and Mobility Manager
Goals
〉A reliable on-demand service that doesn’t require students to call a dispatcher to book a ride
〉A dependable on-demand algorithm that doesn’t require manual trip planning for the 200 ride requests per night received by UTS
〉A fixed-route service that doesn’t rely on timetables, but gives accurate ETAs.
Outcomes
〉Wait times for fixed-route healthcare services improved from ~10 minutes
pre-COVID to ~2 minutes
〉Established a streamlined on-demand service with no manual trip planning
〉Hardware improvements deliver accurate ETAs for fixed-route services, cutting down on rider complaints