Netherlands, The Hague launches on-demand transit services. Partnership established with The Routing Company
The Routing Company has received a three-year contract from the Municipality of The Hague in the Netherlands. The contract marks TRC’s second partnership in Europe, with The Hague joining West Coast Motors in Scotland.
The Hague is the third largest city in the Netherlands. Its public transport service, run by local operator HTM, has been active since 1864 and today delivers over 80 million passenger rides per year. It also operates shared bikes within the city and tram connections to surrounding cities.
The Routing Company is a platform for on-demand vehicle routing and management. It has been founded by MIT researchers and rideshare industry veterans. Mission? Delivering “routing from multiple points of demand to one vehicle”.
TRC to launch on-demand services in The Hague
Still in Europe, most recently, TRC was accepted as an official supplier on G-Cloud 13 , the United Kingdom’s Crown Commercial Service platform that connects public sector customers with cloud computing service providers, and oversees £3 billion in annual purchases.
The contract will service the Benoordenhout area with TRC’s leading product, the Pingo app (awarded with Metro Magazine’s Innovative Solutions Award for 2022), “which is set to replace the area’s previously underutilized fixed-route service”, TRC says. HTM will provide vehicles and drivers for a new on-demand service powered by TRC’s award-winning technology and launching in early 2023.
Both apps – Ride Pingo and Drive Pingo – will be available in Dutch, marking the first time Dutch is offered across the Pingo platform. Operating as a hub-to-hub service between nine existing bus stops, the service will leverage the Pingo platform’s Venues feature to route drivers and riders to convenient pickup and dropoff locations. The Venue feature allows fleet managers to route all requests to specific points within the service area.
“TRC has strong Dutch roots and maintains a close relationship with the Delft University of Technology. We are thrilled to be launching our first Dutch service in the Netherlands’ dynamic administrative center,” said Menno van der Zee, Cofounder and Engineer, TRC. “We will provide driver and operator training, technical and operational support during launch, and app translation to ensure that this new service is a success from day one.”
“We are very enthusiastic to work with TRC,” said Nadya Ensing, Senior Policy Advisor of Public Transport, Municipality of The Hague. “Using this new technology through the Pingo app, we are offering more flexible and efficient additional public transport in a way that was not possible before.”
