Case Study: Detroit Department of Transportation achieves 75% increase in rides-per-hour and 23% better on-time performance with Ecolane

Detroit Department of Transportation - Customer Case Study

The Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) operates ADA curb-to-curb paratransit across the greater Detroit area and faced acute operational challenges as a larger transit agency: paper manifests and antiquated technology created poor communication between management and drivers, manual scheduling caused vehicles to run behind and overlap, and there was limited visibility into bookings and driver data. Looking to increase efficiency, rides per hour, and customer service, DDOT issued an RFP and selected Ecolane and its DRT Brokerage software to replace the legacy scheduling system.

Ecolane implemented its DRT Brokerage solution with Android MDTs in every vehicle, SMS and web booking, a subcontractor portal, Google Transit integration, and advanced reporting, plus automated least-cost scheduling and thorough training. The result: rides per hour rose from 1.40 to 2.42 scheduled (2.45 delivered), on-time performance improved by about 23% (immediately jumping to ~80% and now 85–90%), weekly ridership hit a record 6,375, complaints fell from ~25/week to 2/week, and DDOT realized immediate positive budget impact after an on-time, on-budget implementation of under five months — all driven by Ecolane’s software and optimization.

Detroit Department of Transportation

Dan Dirks

CEO