Shuttle buses have lots of competition....
You compete against taxis, public transport, rental cars and passengers and their friends and families driving themselves. The real challenge is being seen by your customers as good solution to their transportation need.
You probably have a website and on that website is your route and schedule. You may even have a journey planner on your website. However, in many cases now passengers don't even make to companies websites. Passengers search one of the major software companies maps services (e.g. Google Maps) for directions between locations, choose a transport option and their search ends there. If you don't provide your data in the right format, then you are never even presented as an option. Passengers don't know about you and you miss out on ticket sales.
To get your routes and schedules presented by software companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in their transit maps, they require your routes and schedules in the GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) format. The GTFS format is a little complicated for the uninitiated and besides it's not your core business. You manage shuttle buses. That's where we can help. We can convert your routes and schedules into the GTFS format, submit the resulting files to each of the software companies and help you manage future updates.
If your service has delays or alterations, your customers need to know. It allows them to adjust their plans and be at the right place at the right time. By providing Real Time Status, you can distinguish yourself from the competition. It's a simple way to provide great customer service.
Many passengers on shuttle services do not use the service regularly. They have schedules to keep, but they are in unfamiliar territory. When their bus comes into sight the suddenly feel confidence that their journey is soon to begin. By providing Vehicle Positions, using the AddTransit mobile tracking app or your existing on-board GPS hardware with the AddTransit API, you can give them that confidence earlier.
Allowing your customers to purchase tickets online is now accepted practice. However, many shuttle bus companies are saddled with expensive to build and maintain custom built systems. Since customers don't care if a ticketing solution is custom built and you want to keep down costs, it makes sense to consider AddTransit.
Online ticketing allows customers to purchase their tickets upfront. As many travellers are either rushed or in an unfamiliar location, pre-booking and payment helps make their journey a more enjoyable experience.
By making more use of online ticketing, you can reduce the risk of robbery, reduce ticketing wait times, sell tickets 24x7 and focus your team on higher value activities. Online ticketing also gives you visibility of passenger numbers, allowing you to add or reduce capacity. You can also use online ticketing to encourage passengers to travel at less busy times. This "smooths" passenger number variations allowing you to maximising passenger trips on your existing fleet.
