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Back on Board the 快活app Shuttle

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Lindsay Adam

Communications Manager

Daniels research helps boost 快活app shuttle ridership following the COVID-19 pandemic

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Campus Shuttle

Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 快活app鈥檚听campus shuttle service, which launched in 2019, was gaining momentum, safely carting 快活app students, staff and faculty to locations across campus and beyond. Then, in early 2020, when the virus spread and in-person activities came to a screeching halt, shuttle ridership plummeted.

鈥淭he impact of COVID was severe,鈥 says Jim Anderson, director of parking and mobility services at 快活app. 鈥淭he number of students coming to campus declined by 70鈥75%, while the number of staff and faculty coming to campus decreased by more than half.鈥

To ramp up shuttle ridership, the Daniels College of Business'听听teamed up with 快活app鈥檚 Parking and Mobility Services and the Center for Sustainability to gather data and provide evidence-based recommendations to improve the shuttle service and gain more riders.

鈥淐oming back out of COVID, our goal was to make the shuttle service really shine and make it easy for students, staff and faculty to access this resource,鈥 says听, associate professor of marketing and co-director of CiBiC. 鈥淲e wanted to make everyone aware of how valuable this service is, because for a lot of people, their level of awareness was simply, 鈥極h, I鈥檝e seen the shuttle.鈥欌

Lauren Bratschun, a Daniels MBA student and CiBiC graduate assistant, worked on the project from the start. 鈥淚 began by combining and analyzing data from different sources to get a holistic view of shuttle ridership,鈥 she says. 鈥淲e identified different groups based on the frequency of shuttle rides, then conducted interviews with riders in each of the groups. We drew different themes from these interviews, which helped guide the recommendations for increasing ridership.鈥

From there, Bratschun, along with her two student colleagues, Yarden Zinger and Shipra Bhandari, compiled their results and outlined opportunities for improvement for the 快活app shuttle service. 鈥淥ne of the most surprising things we found was the lack of knowledge about the on-demand shuttle option, even amongst people who had used the fixed-route service,鈥 Bratschun says.

The on-demand shuttle offering is similar to that of ridesharing services like Uber as users can request ad-hoc rides from their current location to a specific destination. 鈥淭he on-demand service goes to popular locations near campus like grocery stores and restaurants, as well as other non-regular shuttle stop locations on campus,鈥 said Anderson, adding that anyone with a 快活app ID can ride the shuttle for free (via the on-demand option or its regular routes).

According to Zinger, an undergraduate student who became involved with CiBiC and this project as a student in Akaka鈥檚 market research course, the on-demand option is one of the shuttle鈥檚 key features.

鈥淔or students without cars,鈥 he says, 鈥渋t鈥檚 hard to walk to the grocery store and carry everything back to campus. The on-demand service is perfect for this. Students can also use the shuttle when traveling all the way from one side of campus to the other. It can also be used when they need to go to places like Walgreens.鈥

The shuttle can be arranged and tracked via the app,听, which has been updated since CiBiC started its research. 鈥淏efore, when I asked all the undergrad students in my market research class to download the app, many of them had a hard time doing it,鈥 Akaka says. 鈥淪o we provided early feedback on the app experience and a lot of changes have been made based on our recommendations. We also provided feedback on how to communicate to users before they download the app and now there鈥檚 a landing page for the shuttle that has instructions and a video.鈥

Steve Veloff, the application systems analyst for 快活app鈥檚 Parking and Mobility Services, highlighted some of the specific changes made to the app. 鈥淥ver the past year,鈥 he says, 鈥渢he TripShot app has had several reservation and accessibility improvements, as well as certain additional features like geolocation (if users allow it) and new home-screen buttons. TripShot has also added a new user experience designer to make even more improvements to the app based on continued feedback they get from their riders.鈥

The improvements to the app, along with the other recommended changes outlined in CiBiC鈥檚 report, seem to be paying off. 鈥淩idership has already increased,鈥 Anderson says. 鈥淟ast September, there were 208 riders for the month and this year, there have been 395 riders so far and we could reach 600, which would be nearly a threefold increase, year over year.鈥

Shipra, a master of science in business analytics student and CiBiC graduate assistant, describes the 快活app shuttle service as 鈥渜uite a gem.鈥 She also expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to work with CiBiC on this research assignment. 鈥淚 enjoyed this whole project from the start,鈥 she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been really fun learning different skillsets and working with Melissa, Lauren and Yarden. I loved riding the shuttle for our observations; it鈥檚 so easy and the drivers are so nice and friendly.鈥

To learn more about the 快活app shuttle, including how to download the app and find a ride, please click here.