Case Study: Commute.org achieves real-time rider alerts and 300% higher survey responses with SimpleTexting

How Commute.org Uses SMS To Make Getting to Work Easier

Commute.org, a public agency in San Mateo County focused on reducing solo driving, needed a better way to send real-time updates to shuttle riders across 17 cities and roughly 30 routes—traditional flyers and email weren’t working. To solve that communication gap they turned to SimpleTexting’s SMS platform (integrated via SimpleTexting’s API) to deliver timely transit alerts to riders across their system that served 603,732 passenger trips last year.

Using SimpleTexting, Commute.org set up route-specific keywords and a short code, promoted sign-ups via bus window clings, employers, phone support and their website, and enrolled nearly 2,000 subscribers. The vendor’s platform also pushed their annual shuttle survey, producing a response-rate increase of over 300% from 2016–2018, enabling faster incident alerts and much stronger rider feedback to improve service.

Commute.org

John Ford

Executive Director