Whether you’re buying new or upgrading your transportation technology for a large company, a sprawling university, a city government, or a different type of organization, you need to ask the right questions. Every campus transportation system is different and there are many products on the market. How can you ensure technology partners are meeting your unique needs, considering industry trends, and setting your operations up for maximum efficiency and flexibility?

Be Prepared With the Right Questions:

1. How does your solution beat competitors in terms of ETAs and real-time accuracy?
   Get to the heart of what is most important to your campus transportation operations. Asking questions that force technology partners to differentiate themselves from the competition with specific performance metrics, as well as asking questions most valued by riders, can quickly provide answers to help your team make a decision.

With TripShot’s True-Time® arrival notifications, commuters won’t receive estimated arrival times—they will know exactly when their rides will arrive. With our capacity to capture GPS every second, paired with the intelligence behind TripShot’s mapping algorithms, we deliver the most accurate notifications from any CAD/AVL system on the market today. This is true for TripShot-powered Fixed Route, On Demand and more. 

1. How is your product able to adapt to unexpected or sudden changes in our transportation needs? How does this compare to other products?
   Transportation trends have changed over the last several years. Campuses have needed to flex their services to accommodate hybrid work schedules, new demands from riders and more. Asking how a technology partner’s product will prepare your campus for future trends and less predictable scenarios makes it more likely that they can meet your needs over time and save you money by avoiding going to RFP in the future. 

TripShot makes it easy for customers to build a configurable and unified transportation system. Running On Demand alongside Fixed Route means that flexibility is at your fingertips. TripShot supports real-time visibility, so you can boost the efficiency of your fleets and consider maximizing your service areas. TripShot allows you to be flexible and think creatively about the services you provide and deliver to your riders. Whether using Fixed route, On Demand, or another mode, riders enjoy flexibility and an intuitive rider app. 

1. How can your product scale to meet our changing needs? Is there anything that makes it unique?
   Campus transit systems often grow to incorporate multiple campuses or commutes to and from neighboring areas. You should ask questions that encourage technology partners to demonstrate the scalability of their solution. This is another way to ensure you’re picking the right technology partners for the long haul and saving your organization money over time. 

TripShot is built for scalability. Our customers can easily make last-minute service changes or do native long-term planning within the dashboard. Transit admins can run two vehicles or 200 all under the same platform and flex easily between vehicle types throughout the day based on demand. TripShot customers can add new regions without entering into new contracts or incurring new costs. Fixed Route systems can easily add On Demand transportation to fill in service gaps. 

1. Is your system cloud-based or does it rely on proprietary hardware?
2. There are many benefits to leaving behind proprietary hardware and moving to a cloud-based campus transportation solution. This change can reduce hidden costs of hardware upgrades, lengthy contracts and lost opportunities to innovate faster. Also, cloud-based solutions increase visibility for dispatch, drivers and riders. 

TripShot is a cloud-based mobility operating system. Our technology makes it easy for customers to optimize their entire transportation system, including On Demand, Fixed Route, Parking and more. This means that customer needs are met and dispatch, drivers and riders have an improved user experience.

1. How do your company’s values align with ours?
   Questions that get to the core of the technology partner’s values and reputation will help you determine if they will easily connect with your team and achieve your goals. What is most important to your organization? What are you hoping to achieve with this new technology? What questions can you ask to confirm that these values will be honored?

Our transportation demand management solution can be implemented quickly. In the last quarter of 2023, new TripShot customers were able to start supporting riders using our technology within 35 days on average. 

Get Answers for a Future-Facing Transportation System

When comparing TDM solutions, you should be thorough and thoughtful enough to save your organization time and money over the years. Which technology partners are most trusted in the transportation industry? Which technology partners have built their SaaS products from the ground up to solve problems with campus transportation specifically? Which technology partners build with their customers to continuously innovate, create new features and adjust to new trends in campus transportation?