DDS Wireless
Addressing the Challenges of Demand-Responsive Paratransit

Innovations in the transport industry have added a new dimension to the demand response sector and shown the world possibility of instant ride-booking and efficient ridesharing. And, even if more than a decade has traversed since the inception of the concept, the benefits of such a remarkable revolution haven’t yet been equally felt across the entire transportation realm. Take paratransit services (assisted transportation for citizens with mobility issues), for example. Although paratransit services are an integral part of any contemporary city, the critical processes of a city’s paratransit operations have not yet taken advantage of all the emergent technologies available today. On that note, many paratransit operators are now asking: How can we take advantage of smarter systems that leverage technological advances such as AI and machine learning to optimize our services and offer a better, cost-effective customer experience.

Terry Tarle, the President of StrataGen Systems a DDS Wireless Company, has a fitting response to that. “StrataGen is on the cusp of offering an innovative transport solution. We not only offer efficient service with instant booking, intelligent ridesharing, and multimodal capabilities but also generate new opportunities for paratransit providers to participate in rapidly growing smart-city ecosystems with an integrated IOT platform.” Notably, that is precisely what his company brings to the table.

StrataGen was formed in 1997 to help municipalities, governments, and transportation agencies meet the requirements of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) and other regulatory protocols. Today, StrataGen’s ADEPT^TM Technology has evolved to include full dispatch, scheduling, booking and reporting to enable its’ customers to improve the passenger experience while lowering operational costs and efficiently managing door-to-door paratransit ridesharing services.

ADEPT^TM continuously incorporates and analyses traffic and weather updates from various sources like the department of transportation to identify street-level service disruptions and optimize the routes of even very large fleets of vehicles in real-time. At the same time, ADEPT^TM takes advantage of existing city infrastructure to complement the on-demand paratransit services with extensive fixed-route and taxi systems. Most recently, several Transit Authorities leveraged the ADEPT^TM solution to manage their paratransit services amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deviating from the previous concept of running each vehicle to their optimum capacity, these cities re-optimized the platform to assign individual vehicles to riders to adhere with strict social distancing policies.

“We are the incumbent technology partner in about 45 jurisdictions within North America, including New York City, and we have further enhanced our ADEPT solution to take advantage of new intelligent technology” shares Tarle.

On that note, StrataGen is set to unveil ADEPT IQ—the next-generation of its demand response solution. ADEPT IQ is poised to be vastly superior, “it will leverage new AI and cloud technology to make smarter, quicker decisions and be more effective on the ‘day-of-service,’” underscores Tarle. Leveraging the Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud, ADEPT IQ combines data for real-time scheduling, routing, tracking, and monitoring transit vehicles with rider and driver self-service tools in a central repository. Further, with a Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model, even smaller transit authorities can benefit from efficient management of ‘day-of-service’ performance with continuous optimization at low operating cost.

With the SaaS deployment on AWS, ADEPT IQ reduces the total cost of ownership while improving availability, scalability, and security. The new ADEPT IQ Technology also adds a layer of predictive scheduling and business intelligence to bolster fleet operational efficiency and performance in real-time. Further, ADEPT IQ modules are easily integrated with other fleet management systems through open APIs. “It will also have the functionalities necessary for multimodal transportation and integration with smart city ecosystems leveraging ADEPT IQ Marketplace,” states Tarle. “This marketplace hosts StrataGen’s ADEPT IQ Technology and provides seamless integration with 3rd party services.

Moving forward with such a bold vision, the ADEPT IQ marketplace will enable easy integration of new functionalities such as IVR, billing, IOT sensors and more. At the same time, StrataGen plans to offer its innovative solutions for adjacent markets like non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT), micro-transit and others, enabling them to be an integral part of the smart-city ecosystem. On that front, StrataGen is partnering with one of its customers to pilot and launch a new mobile app service later this year. And finally, as Tarle reveals, following DDS’s “think big, start small, and act fast” mantra, they are poised to become an esteemed Amazon partner and deliver their SaaS offering in the paratransit space. “And that’s quite a vision for us,” concludes Tarle.