Kitsap County on-demand transit services expanded
Washington state’s Kitsap Transit (KT) has awarded a contract to the Routing Company (TRC), a global on-demand vehicle routing and management platform, to expand its on-demand transit service.
The five-year contract expands existing on-demand service to three services (KT’s Kingston Ride, SK Ride, and Sunday service), beginning with the reintroduction of KT Sunday service.
Kitsap County
KT is the transit agency in Kitsap County, Washington, part of the Puget Sound region. TRC has been serving KT with on-demand transit for two years, having moved over 50,000 passengers through KT’s Pingo-powered BI Ride service on Bainbridge Island.
Under the new service, with rollout starting September 2023, on-demand and flexible service will be available across three new zones in Kitsap County with service days expanding throughout the entire week, bringing the total number of Pingo-powered services in Kitsap County to four.
TRC will deliver on-demand transit by leveraging its full suite of Pingo products – including flexible on-demand and enhanced fixed route services – and features such as Pingo Journey, Pingo Flex, and Transit Connect. Introduced in October 2022, Pingo Journey integrates TRC’s real-time routing technology with public transport infrastructure, allowing riders to hail on-demand transport rides and plan multimodal transport journeys all from the single Ride Pingo app.
Pingo Flex provides greater flexibility for traditionally fixed transit routes. According to TRC, operators get more out of existing services by keeping scheduled stops, while adding on-demand elements to improve service responsiveness in high density or intermittently peak demand routes.
Transit Connect guarantees connections for riders to fixed route networks using real-time data. The feature was developed by TRC as a solution to improve the rider experience and guarantee a connection to onward transit modes.
“We have seen how the Ride Pingo app empowers our BI Ride customers to use the service and now we’re rolling it out to our other on-demand services,” said John Clauson, executive director of Kitsap Transit.
“We’ve appreciated TRC’s spirit of partnership, adapting their product to our local needs, as well as innovation in developing a smart trip-planning tool that incorporates fixed-route with on-demand services.”
The contract marks an expansion beyond Bainbridge Island, where KT has operated its on-demand BI Ride service six days a week (Monday through Saturday) since July 2021.
The contract adds the Pingo platform to KT’s two other on-demand services (Kingston Ride and SK Ride) and its future rollout of Sunday service to the Bainbridge, Bremerton, Port Orchard, Poulsbo, and Silverdale regions.
"As the first US transit agency to adopt the Pingo platform, Kitsap’s decision to expand its partnership with TRC is a big vote of confidence in our people and our product,” added James Cox, chief executive officer, TRC.
“Powered by Pingo, Kitsap is harnessing a combination of routing, on-demand, deviated route or flex services, and transfer points to offer transit that benefits the community through the combined strength of fixed-route and flexible transit services. We innovate by building what our customers need, and I’m so excited we can continue to innovate together in Kitsap County.”
