Swiftly, Inc.

Most transit agencies have plenty of data. What's missing is a way to act on it. That was my takeaway from talking with Durham Region Transit's Jack Phelan (Manager of Policy and Planning) and Neil Harkness (Program Manager, Transit Technical Services) for our latest case study. Before Swiftly, analyzing historical performance was slow, so schedule adjustments often relied on small samples and anecdotal evidence, with no clear view of which routes needed the most attention. As Jack put it: "You'd go and work on something, not knowing that there was a bigger problem out there that nobody was mentioning." Once the team could easily see the whole network, that changed: → A targeted service change lifted on-time performance by 9 percentage points on key routes → Customer service now resolves rider calls at the first point of contact — no escalations → Nearly 70 staff across planning, scheduling, customer service, and operations use the data daily In 2020, DRT became the first Canadian agency to partner with Swiftly, Inc. Six years later, they're proof of what I see in every market: the gap between having data and acting on it is where reliability is won or lost. Read the case study: https://lnkd.in/ghicv_Zu

The Swiftly team will be making a scheduled stop at APTA Rail in Baltimore next week! Come find Javier Trilla, Mark Godin, and Cole McCarren to discover how over 200 agencies use real-time data to communicate disruptions faster, reduce the load on Operations and Communications teams, and keep riders informed when it matters most. If your agency is working through gaps in disruption communication, Mark's session on Tuesday is worth catching. He'll be joined by moderator Hannah Roth of Metro-North Railroad, and panelists and speakers Marcelo Bravo (Tracsis), Chris Prentiss and Stewart Mader (Jacobs), and Rachel Russell (BART). Together, they'll share a practical playbook for communicating disruptions in real-time. Find time to meet with the team before or after the session here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gzwVwG4V

Riders depend on real-time information to make decisions. But across the industry, roughly 1 in 6 scheduled trips run with no prediction, no cancellation notice, nothing. In addition to a technology problem, it's also a measurement problem. And until now, there's been no industry standard to address it. "The ETA Completeness Benchmark finally gives us a way to do that." — Dan Freudberg, Deputy COO, WeGo Public Transit We co-developed the first industry-wide ETA Completeness Benchmark with Cal-ITP: California Integrated Travel Project. Read the full methodology, see where the industry stands, and learn what's behind the gaps 👉 https://lnkd.in/eNBv34i2

Friday is the 161st anniversary of Juneteenth, and we'd like to spotlight how a few agencies are honoring and celebrating Freedom Day! EMBARKOK, Greensboro Transit Agency, Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority, and MBTA Commuter Rail are all offering free fares on June 19. DART - Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority unveiled a specially decorated bus at DART Central Station, honoring Juneteenth's history and celebrating freedom. It'll be in service through July 5. Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority hosted a Juneteenth flag-raising ceremony at their Metro Transit Center and marched their vibrant Juneteenth bus in Buffalo's Juneteenth Parade and Festival. Milwaukee County Transit System's Juneteenth Bus will join the city's 55th Annual Juneteenth Parade and Festival this Friday. Los Angeles Metro released limited-edition TAP cards to commemorate the holiday. Check them out at any Metro Customer Center across the city. We love hearing about how our industry honors the day, as public transit is interwoven with freedom, access to opportunity, and community connection. Transit has always been about more than getting from A to B; it's one of the roads to an equitable future. Photos courtesy of KCCI, Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, Milwaukee County Transit System, and LA TAP.

🌈 Happy Pride! We're passionate about building a workplace together where every Swiftlet is comfortable bringing their full selves to work every day, and ensuring that LGBTQIA+ Swiftlets are supported year-round—financially through wellness stipends that make care and services accessible no matter where you live, respectfully with pronoun normalization, and through community with our Queer Swifters employee-led resource group. This year, we want to share the queer-owned spaces we couldn't live without. If you don't live in any of these cities, find the queer-owned businesses close to you: everywhereisqueer.com and support them this June—and always. Nothing's better or cooler or more fun than supporting businesses that love us for who we are! 🏳️🌈

Transit planners: how confident are you that your timebands reflect how service actually operates? Run-time analysis is only as good as the timebands behind it. But when those timebands are locked to a published schedule—not real-world conditions—even the best runtime recommendations can miss the mark. Swiftly's Editable Timebands lets planners and schedulers split, merge, and customize time bands directly within Run-Time Suggestions. That means run-time analysis can account for actual peaks, slowdowns, school dismissals, event traffic, and other operating realities. The result isn't just less manual work. It's more accurate run-time recommendations, schedules that better reflect service conditions, and stronger on-time performance. Better timebands. Better run-time recommendations. Better OTP. Find some time with our team to see it in action 👉 https://lnkd.in/d7sWbCSZ

Ghost buses are supremely frustrating for riders. They’re also supremely difficult for agencies to measure. Until now. We all know the experience. The ETA counts down: 5 minutes… 3 minutes… 0 minutes. Yet no bus, no alert. Riders are left wondering whether to keep waiting or give up. Staff might only hear about the experience from rider complaints, if they hear about it at all. Today, we're introducing the ETA Completeness Benchmark, the first industry-wide standard for measuring ghost buses and similar gaps in real-time information. The Benchmark enables agencies to track these negative experiences and understand how they compare to industry peers. Co-developed with Cal-ITP: California Integrated Travel Project—and endorsed by Transit, Jarrett Walker + Associates, Left Turn Right Turn, and Blinktag Inc—the benchmark goes beyond ETA accuracy. ETA completeness captures a dimension that accuracy alone misses: whether real-time information reaches riders in the first place. The data tells a pretty striking story. About half of North America's 50 largest transit agencies score "Fair" or "Needs Improvement." But completeness scores don't only point out problems; they point toward solutions—from automated vehicle assignment to feeding service adjustments directly into real-time systems. We believe that when riders can trust the information they see, everyone wins. ❌ 👻 Read the full post to see the benchmark, the thresholds, and how agencies like KCATA, WeGo Public Transit, METRO Regional Transit Authority, and Denton County Transportation Authority are already closing the gap. 👉 https://lnkd.in/eNBv34i2

What happens when you give bus operators turn-by-turn navigation and real-time visibility into their schedule adherence? We sat down with Michael Helta, Chief Customer Experience Officer at MTA Maryland, to hear how their Onboard App pilot played out: → Buses with the tablet were 25% more likely to be on time → Early departures dropped by 37%, with no increase in late departures  → Operators said it was easy to use and actually helpful You can build the best tool in the world, but if operators don't want to use it, it doesn't matter. MDOT MTA is now gearing up for a full-fleet rollout this summer. Mike talks through the journey in the clip below. Learn more about Onboard App here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gS2TUWGi

This week, I will be in Rhode Island, presenting at the biennial NEPTA conference in a session titled "Realtime Information Data Solutions". I, along with my co-presenters Kaj Huddart and Jonathan McHatton, will be focusing on the work that Pioneer Valley Transit Authority has done to improve the passenger experience through the use of technology. If you will be at the conference, stop by our session and say hi!

📍 La próxima semana el equipo europeo de Swiftly, Inc. estará en el Global Mobility Call 2026 en IFEMA MADRID. ¡Podéis encontrarnos en el stand 5E05! El evento de referencia de la movilidad sostenible en España, con los debates que nos importan en Swiftly, Inc. en el centro del programa: el transporte público y el papel de los datos en sistemas de movilidad más eficientes y centrados en la experiencia del usuario. ¿Autoridades, operadores públicos o privados y otros actores del sector: también estaréis por allí? Muchas ganas de coincidir 🚌