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Cheyenne Transit Program makes the switch to paratransit and microtransit powered by Spare

The Wyoming transportation provider from the city of Cheyenne replaces its manual system to help manage priorities and increase operational efficiency for its paratransit and microtransit services.


Kristoffer Vik Hansen

Oct. 21 (Vancouver, Canada) — After suspending its fixed-route bus network due to COVID-19 and implementing a manual-run microtransit service earlier this year, Cheyenne Transit Program (CTP) in Wyoming’s capital took a leap forward by automating its microtransit and paratransit operations with Spare. The data-driven platform will help CTP build greater efficiencies into its service and improve the customer experience.

Spare, the world’s leading on-demand software mobility provider, has digitized the agency’s entire operation, removing the heavy burden placed on dispatchers to manually manage the recurring, scheduled and same-day ADA paratransit and on-demand microtransit trip requests.

Service area of the paratransit and microtransit service CTP On-Demand

CTP will also be rolling out Spare’s whitelabel smartphone app, which allows paratransit and microtransit riders to book a trip themselves. Passengers who prefer to call the agency to book or set-up recurring trips however still have this flexibility. Instead of doing all the heavy-lifting of scheduling and matching trips to available vehicles, dispatchers simply need to enter the trip details into Spare and its algorithm does it in seconds.

When a trip request comes into the system, Spare quickly analyzes what is the most time and cost efficient option based on the existing demand. It is constantly optimizing the trip schedule, balancing scheduled or advanced bookings with real-time ones to ensure both passengers and the transit agency are happy.

Although it initially planned to use Spare just for microtransit, CTP's experience working with Spare's team empowered it to move its ADA paratransit over to the automated platform as well.

“With our proven track record in managing paratransit operations in the United States, Cheyenne was confident in our ability to improve its service for both the passenger and agency. We were honored to take it on,” says Spare CEO Kristoffer Vik Hansen.

By bringing paratransit and microtransit under one digital umbrella, the agency was able to take advantage of commingling, or using the same vehicle to transport passengers from different service categories at the same time. The excess capacity on the paratransit fleet will accommodate the microtransit passengers. This approach allows transportation providers to increase the passenger-to-vehicle ratio while promoting social inclusion. Microtransit and paratransit in Spare partner cities like Lubbock, TX and Lincoln, NE have seen a lot of success thanks to commingling.

Cheyenne Transit Program service vehicle

In order to guarantee availability on this shared service for those who need it most, CTP is using Spare to manage priority ridership. ADA paratransit passengers with recurring trips are considered subscribers and are allowed to schedule trips up to 48 hours ahead of time. One-off paratransit and microtransit trips can either be scheduled or on-demand up to a day in advance, with paratransit getting first dibs.

"Spare was able to demonstrate how they could make our service more efficient and available to our community. Going with Spare has dramatically decreased the time our riders spend on the telephone with a dispatcher to schedule a trip. The team there has been amazing to work with and we launched in record-breaking time!” says Renae Jording, director of the Cheyenne Transit Program.

Wyoming’s largest city has so far recorded upwards of 200 trips per day since switching over to Spare on Oct. 12. The ADA paratransit and on-demand microtransit service, which runs from 6am to 7pm utilizes a fleet of 11 vehicles and provides citywide coverage.

Connect with Spare to find out how simple it is to switch from a manual to an automated system. Reach out to us at hello@sparelab.com.