As transportation services focus on ensuring the safety of all passengers and being on-demand responsive, RideShark has created a new booking module that can be used for reserving shuttle rides on a fixed schedule – whether there’s a driver behind the wheel or not.

After receiving customer feedback, we have enabled customers to modify the default settings for those using 3rd party fitness apps such as Strava, Fitbit, or Under Armour to log trips. All imported fitness activity records now have a property setting that can be set sitewide to “Commute”, ”Business” or “Personal” as a default setting. This new SiteProperty is DefaultTripPurposeFor3rdPartyCommuteDataImports

The property will set all imported activity records from Strava, Fitbit, Garmin and UnderArmour apps as to the selected commute purpose, if the Trip Purpose value is NOT specified by the app. Currently the default setting for all customers is ‘Personal’. Users will be able to change the Trip Purpose value of imported records by editing their logged trip in the calendar (desktop and mobile).

With remote work being increasingly common due to the current COVID‑19 pandemic, RideShark is making it easier for individual users to log their ‘tele-work’ patterns. This is an important component of ensuring platform usage and continuity going forward. Teleworkers can use the LiveTrack feature to track their daily telework routine, or they can schedule tracking to ensure no days are missed.

RideShark is developing our Transit Module as we look to the future of sustainable public and community transportation. We continue to build out our mobility trip planning, booking, payment and tracking functionality for multiple modes that intersect with public transit.

November 17, 2020

December 1, 2020

There can only ever be one first. From November 2nd-13th 2020, the City of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada is hosting the first on-road trial of an electric, autonomous shuttle approved for driverless operation by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. RideShark is a key partner to this pilot project which is being led by Invest Ottawa and Transport Canada, while featuring two EasyMile EZ10 shuttles.

A Low-Speed Autonomous Shuttle is a small electric self-driving passenger vehicle that can fit up to six people (seated). The maximum speed of these vehicles is typically 15mph (or less). A safety operator is onboard to take full control of the shuttle if required at any time. These vehicles generally travel along a programmed route and utilize sensors and software to detect their surroundings, guide travel and avoid obstacles. The current use cases for these types of driverless ‘people-movers’ have been for sports stadiums, university and corporate campuses or logistics centres. However, as the technology advances, the promise of first-mile and last-mile mobility that is connected to public transit is exciting.

Of course, running the first such pilot during a pandemic introduced a number of challenges. It goes without saying the protecting the health and safety of all passengers and vehicle ambassadors was the highest priority. A number of safety measures were recommended by local public health authorities including mandatory masking, social distancing onboard and sanitization after each shuttle trip. It was also determined that there needed to be a reservation element to allow families to book the vehicle for their own private ‘bubble’ ride – and that’s where RideShark got involved.

As a leader in providing commute management tools for public and private sector, RideShark was enlisted to provide the booking capability for this on-road pilot. Leveraging our existing relationships with the City of Ottawa and their Ottawa Ride Match platform, we developed a custom plugin that can be used to book rides based on a fixed operating schedule. Individuals in Ottawa were able to quickly and seamlessly book their preferred timeslot in either English and French, Canada’s two official languages, as well as notify organizers of any accessibility accommodations that might be needed for wheelchairs or other assistive devices as the EasyMile shuttles are fully accessible.

As part of this pilot, RideShark also collaborated directly with EasyMile to enable live mapping of the shuttle by integrating a vehicle positioning API. This will be an important feature as we move into the on-demand era of mobility, with individuals able to see the live location of the ride they’ve booked and connections to other transportation modes such as public transit or e-scooters. With hundreds of rides booked during this first pilot of its kind in Ontario, RideShark is driving – or perhaps better yet, propelling – the future of sustainable public and community transportation.

RideShark Presenting at the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) Virtual Conference

Our very own Elliot Siemiatycki will be a panelist at the CUTA 2020 Virtual Conference on November 18th discussing new technologies enabling Mobility-as-a-Service. If anyone would like to view his 8 minute pre-recorded talk on this topic, please reach out to us directly or keep an eye out for our Blog Section where it will be posted after the session is completed.