Transit agencies across the globe are responding quickly to the emerging needs of the COVID-19 public health crisis. Over the last two weeks, we heard from our community that common challenges now include unexpected reductions in staffing, increased hygiene and safety standards, and an unprecedented sense of urgency around rolling out service changes and communicating them to riders. Our community is busier than ever and we want to make sure we are supporting them to the best of our ability.
Recently, we hosted a webinar to share important updates in the Remix platform that are designed to help with emergency planning. Here were the top five takeaways:
Many of our customers are implementing service changes more quickly than they have in the past. The GIFs below provide a refresher of the two main functions used for service changes: drawing routes and customizing timetables.
36% of transit riders are essential workers and continue to rely on service to reach their destinations. We added new data layers in Remix to address this need. These data layers include hospitals, nursing homes, senior centers, and other important locations for cities across the US. Agencies can reference these layers for quick insights, such as total number of hospital beds provided at a single location, or see overall summary statistics in the side panel.
If you have data on other points of interests (e.g. public venues, grocery stores, testing centers, etc.) that are providing essential services in your community, reach out to your Customer Success Manager to upload that information in Remix.
Remix’s recent enhancements to data analytics include the ability to work with multiple data layers as well as the ability to filter the layer legend. These improvements enable agencies to answer important questions like, “What does access to hospitals or pharmacies look like for car-free communities?” or “Are we providing enough service for our essential workers?”
Agencies are making complex changes while many key decision-makers are remote. Online resources for collaboration are no longer a bonus - they’re a necessity. Text box annotations add clarity to Remix maps, saving precious time by keeping all decision-makers on the same page.
Agencies must continue to engage with the public despite being remote. Remix’s public commenting capabilities allow you to share maps with community members, who can then view and add comments.
Commenters now have the option to provide a name and email address, which enables planners to reach out and start the conversation they would have had during an in-person meeting.
If you are using Remix to plan service addressing needs related to COVID-19, please do not hesitate to reach out to your Customer Success Manager for additional tips. If you are less familiar with Remix but would like to learn more, please reach out here.
Introducing On-demand Planning: The first planning product for on-demand and flexible fleets that is data-driven, integrated with the fixed-route network, and collaborative.
Meet New Remix, designed to be more intuitive, flexible, and more powerfully multimodal.
Since launching Presentation Studio, we’ve been delighted to see the creative ways in which our partner agencies are using the feature. We're proud to showcase their work with a "Map Gallery."