TRC unveils nine distinct game-changing Pingo upgrades that simplify paratransit operations, save time, and dramatically enhance the user experience
New features set to redefine operational efficiency for dispatchers and reservationists, while maintaining Pingo as the top-rated paratransit app in the industry
September 18, 2024 – New York, New York, USA: The Routing Company (“TRC”), a global on-demand vehicle routing and management platform partnering with cities to power the future of public transit, today announced a powerful suite of upgrades to its Pingo Access™ product. These enhancements introduce nine new features, designed to significantly elevate the experience for dispatchers and call center reservationists, while further solidifying Pingo as the highest-rated paratransit platform on the market.
With features such as round-trip bookings, rider saved addresses, quiet hours, and dispatch-to-driver communication, the upgrades deliver tangible benefits that simplify complex processes, streamline operations, and improve the quality of service for paratransit systems. This positions Pingo Access™ as the ultimate solution for efficient commingled paratransit, offering users faster, easier, and more responsive tools.
"We’re pushing the boundaries of what transit technology can do, particularly in how we create meaningful experiences for all users," said James Cox, Chief Executive Officer, TRC. "Paratransit is one of the most complex and critical elements of public transit, and we’re committed to ensuring that the user experience for riders, reservationists, and dispatchers is nothing short of exceptional. As we continue to invest in our platform, we’re excited about the role we play in improving the quality of life for communities that depend on accessible and equitable transit."
Empowering Reservationists: Six User-Centric Features
The latest enhancements focus on reducing friction and increasing convenience for call center reservationists. Highlights include:
- Smart Round Trips: Simplifying round-trip bookings to just two clicks, enabling faster scheduling for busy agents.
- Rider Saved Addresses: Agents can now save commonly used addresses, and access them with a single click during the booking process, improving booking speed and accuracy.
- Saved Notification Preferences: Riders can store their preferred notification methods, reducing manual data entry for agents.
- Quiet Hours: A feature to mute non-urgent notifications during designated hours, optimizing productivity and rider experience.
- Custom Subscriptions: Riders can pre-schedule recurring trips, freeing up call center agents from handling repetitive booking requests.
- Persistent Driver Notes: Easily accessible notes allow drivers to understand riders’ needs on every trip, ensuring personalized service.
Example of Smart Round Trips (roundtrip booking)
Redefining the Dispatcher Experience
In tandem, the remaining three upgrades deliver critical enhancements for dispatchers, addressing the complex needs of modern transit systems:
- Instant Service Alerts: Real-time notifications sent through the Ride Pingo™ app keep riders informed of service disruptions, leveraging the latest in GTFS Service Alerts.
- Priority Pickup Reordering: More than just reassigning trips, dispatchers can now customize the order of pickups and dropoffs on a manifest. These custom orders are preserved even when the global optimizer kicks in.
- Dispatch-to-Driver Communication: A two-way communication tool that allows dispatchers and drivers to seamlessly share texts, images, and voice notes, making coordination faster and more effective.
Example of Trip Reordering
"Our team has spent months collaborating with our agency partners and listening to real-time user feedback," said Niko Rekhviashvili, Senior Director of Product, TRC. "These updates reflect our deep commitment to solving real-world challenges, making the lives of transit operators and reservationists easier, and ultimately driving greater efficiency across the board. At TRC, innovation is continuous because we recognize that every feature improvement can have a direct impact on service quality, operational savings, and most importantly, the rider experience.”
Example of Saved Notification Preferences
Partner Collaboration and Industry-Leading Support
"TRC continuously listens to its customers and implements changes that matter – and what’s remarkable is that they manage to deploy these updates without any downtime or operational lag," said Diane Feinstein, Transportation Manager of FAST. "The seamless integration of multiple transit modes under Pingo is a game-changer, making our service more inclusive and efficient. Our riders feel empowered, not marginalized, and that's a huge leap forward in accessible transit."
Today’s upgrade further advances TRC’s One Transit operating model, where seamless integration of transit modes create a truly unified transit system that is accessible and equitable for all riders. The integration of two or more transit modes not only enhances operational efficiency, it also represents a significant move towards inclusive public transportation by treating all riders as equals – whether they’re using paratransit, microtransit, or fixed routes.
TRC strives to deliver industry’s best customer experience, and remains unmatched in customer satisfaction. Following a recent partner survey, TRC announced it earned a record customer satisfaction score with a Net Promoter Score (or “NPS”) of 92, continuing to illustrate TRC’s ability to delight partners and deliver on white glove service expectations.
TRC’s award-winning Pingo platform includes the Drive Pingo™ and Ride Pingo™ apps and the Pingo Dashboard™ operations management tool, which together provide on-demand, paratransit, fixed, shuttle, and flexible transit that enhances ridership of existing transit networks.
Pingo has moved over 1.5 million passengers to date. To learn more, visit theroutingcompany.com, or to request a demo, email move@theroutingcompany.com.
About TRC
Founded by MIT researchers and rideshare industry veterans, TRC is a global on-demand vehicle routing and management platform that partners with cities to power the future of public transit. Leveraging proprietary and unrivalled artificial intelligence, TRC delivers routing from multiple points of demand to one vehicle while enabling greater transit equity, accessibility, cost efficiency, and sustainability. Its leading product, the Pingo™ app, offers on-demand or advance trip requests and can operate in on-demand, flex, fixed, or paratransit mode.
With a team spanning eight countries, TRC directly supports international operations and customer growth through hubs in Canada, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Learn more at theroutingcompany.com.
Media Inquiries
Lindy Norris
Vice President, Marketing & Policy
Investor Inquiries
James Cox
Chief Executive Officer
