These rural nondrivers are more likely than their driving neighbors to be female, nonwhite, and low income.
And some heavy hitters are investing to make this happen.
Two primary types of data shared in a public transportation cloud-based environment drive service modernizationdiscovery data and transactional data.
Discovery data The General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is the underlying data standard for discovery data.
Discovery data allow customers to find information about available travel options.
The GTFS describes fixed routes with fixed schedules.
However, the GTFS-Flex extension allows customers to view their demand responsive transportation options.
For many rural services, it is not enough to inform customers about the service.
This is what makes rural public transportation more complex than urban fixed-route services.
The system creates fewer trip denials, fewer empty seats, and lower costs per passenger.
RideSheet puts scheduling in the cloud using the Google Suite of software (e.g., Google Sheets).
And it integrates the TDS so that two or more providers can share trip data.
Universal mobility as a service can and must be the future of transportation.
MaaS is coming, but rural and intercity public transportation could be left behind unless we are proactive.
Most older adults are not aware of them.
