Now more than ever, rider safety is a top priority when welcoming passengers back in the midst of COVID and beyond. Showing your riders you’re putting their safety first will also be the toughest hurdle to successfully convince passengers to ride again.
Your ridership is skittish to return to public transit right now because:
Riders don’t want to handle cash or cards
Riders don’t want to step onto a packed bus and not sure when it’s been sanitized
Riders aren’t sure if their normal routes are still running anymore with all of the route and schedule updates,
Contactless payments are extremely relevant in the current climate, and a single contactless payment solution + real-time transit tracker helps re-engage riders and brings back transparency to your ridership. Making a move like this also shows riders that leadership is listening and investing in technologies that make transit safer for them.
It’s your agency’s job to address these three points head on, or risk having a drop in ridership numbers in the upcoming years and beyond due to poor communication and transparency with your ridership.
Here are our top 4 suggestions on how to let riders know you’re putting their safety front and center while welcoming them back:
Providing touchless fare collection options for your riders enables them to let your drivers visually validate tickets without needing to handle excess cash or swipe their cards repeatedly
Enabling bus capacity tracking capabilities so your riders know exactly how many folks are on each bus before stepping on
Sending notifications to your ridership letting them know about the cleaning schedules on your fleet so they know you’re putting their safety first
Sending alerts to your rider’s phones updating them on any stop or route changes so they’re in the know
By empowering your riders with the information they need and the technology they require to navigate public transit safety, the transition back to riding will be much more seamless than relying on your old way of doing business and pre-COVID.
If your agency is having trouble doing any of the above, Tixora can help you quickly set up your touchless fare collection, bus capacity tracking, notifications, and alerts without any additional hardware or fixed costs/fees. Contact us here or drop us a line at hello@tixora.com.