Delivering Disruption Alerts

Failure to deliver reliable information during periods of disruption is widely acknowledged as a barrier to increasing bus ridership. But is it really so hard to achieve? In reality, success here requires just three things:

1. Know which services, stops or operators the customer uses
   Once you know the services, stops and operators passengers wish to use, you are ready to deliver targeted alerts. This information can be easily obtained by including subscription options within your journey planner, mobile app or website – you just need to offer users the ability to opt into alerts relating to their travel plans.

2. A way to contact them
   Proactive communication is critical. We can’t expect users to continually check their travel plans to see if anything has changed; the most effective way to deliver incident information is via an SMS, push notification via an installed Smartphone application, or even a Twitter address. Contact methods can be obtained at the point of user subscription, along with any required permissions to use them.

3. A sophisticated communications tool
   The final step is to ensure you can effectively take disruption information and target the affected passengers. Trapeze’s Situation Console is fully integrated with your Novus solution, enabling you ‘tag’ the stops, services and operators affected by each incident, and then use the SIRI-SX protocol to distribute tailored messaging directly into the hands of all required recipients – and nobody else.