Contagion free Public Transport: Jetty

People are worried about handling cash to pay their fare, want to minimize time spent in crowded bus shelters, and are unwilling to board  vehicles cramped with strangers.This industry is in peril, compromising the viability of climate-friendly-sustainable cities. How will public transit reassure its passengers and maintain its viability?  What adjustments to service need to be adopted to minimize risk of contagion?

Jetty is an app-based collective transport platform operating in Mexico since 2017. We’ve improved the service of quasi-informal transit operators by using big-data, GIS and crowdsourced-services to dignify the drivers´s jobs and enhance passenger experience. We are making our technology available to all public transport operator, with  contagion-prevention features.

If scaled globally, our technology would help prevent future outbreaks and help the industry earn back passenger´s trust.  Additionally, we would help prevent massive purchase of private vehicles, and positively impact the life  those dependent on quasi-informal transit services.

The coronavirus pandemic has transformed cities as we know them. Public transport is not the exception. Social distancing and mass transit are two concepts that don’t fit well together. According to MOOVIT, there has been a global reduction of public transport ridership down to 70% y 90%. Around the world there has been much discussion around the role of transit systems on covid-19 spread. Recent studies have shown that enclosed places are correlated with coronavirus transmission. 

Jetty has adapted its technology to minimize covid-19 contagion on public transportation, and aim to scale our solutions throughout latin american cities. We provide a: 1) Contagion-free Public Transport by checking temperature to users before riding, obligatory masks and contact-tracing. 2) Personalized experience for both transit operators and users by generating on-demand routes and services depending on the information they provide. Information such as what type of special needs they require (pregnant, disabilities, medical staff). Owners and users can connect through Jetty, whenever they need to. Jetty also analyses passenger feedback and mines data collected to suggest actionable steps for transport planners to improve their services.

Jetty’s technology helps public transportation operators and passengers connect with each other through a platform that uses big data, GIS and crowdsourced services to provide a safer ride with the following features:

• Seat reservations and off-board, contactless fare payment through software.

• Real time monitoring  the location of vehicles via GPS.

• Demand-responsive location of stops, routes and schedules that help  minimize transfers through GIS and crowdsourcing.

• Passenger evaluation and driver monitoring, and real time customer support through an in-app chat.

• Online and offline training for drivers, focusing on  customer service and gender awareness.

• Traceability of infections in case of covid-19 through the app.

• Developed protocols for users and drivers to enforce social distancing for passengers. 

We understand the reluctance to digital transformation and adaptation of technology. For these reasons, we offer immediate benefits: 

• For transit providers: have a safe arrival planning system, supervision and monitoring tools for the drivers.

• For passengers: access information on routes, stops, travel times and frequencies of the services; know who is their driver and vehicle; rate the service and give feedback on the travel experience; have real-time support attended by trained agents before, during and after the trip; possibility of recovering forgotten objects in units. 

In recent months, we observed how the Covid pandemic affected the public transport system. Service frequency was reduced, and the few vehicles that remained in operation traveled at full capacity. Low-wage, essential employees, who depend on transit for their daily commute, were most affected. Public servants such as medical staff, nurses, and policemen arrive everyday to their jobs to ensure that society has the goods and services necessary to face the pandemic. Staying at home is not an option for them. 

Unfortunately medical staff such as nurses and doctors have recently faced attacks on public transport.  Governments and transit operators must take extraordinary measures to enforce social distancing and onboard contagion prevention   protocols. So, how can we appease passengers, reassure drivers, and provide safe transport to all amidst the COVID-19 outbreak? 

In Jetty we seek to benefit inhabitants of large, dense  cities by leveraging our technology to minimize the risk of COVID 19 contagion onboard public transit. An option that is contact-less and promotes social distancing on collective transport. An option that enables heroes who fight everyday against COVID-19 to get to the war zone safely everyday. And prepares the cities for a safe return to the new normality.

Recently, international effort has been developed to address negative externalities of choosing a car as the main travel choice in major cities. Covid-19 may push people back to single-occupancy vehicles.. Fear of contagion on transit may boost car sales and trigger threats to public health  such as air pollution and congestion stress.. 

Jetty helps adapt transit services to the post-COVID reality. We can help prepare major cities in latinamerica maintaining viability  and pandemic-management. Even in the worst-hit cities, essential workers rely on public transit to commute. Technology and innovation can help guarantee health security by developing a contagion-free Public Transport.

Jetty has transformed the way people commute within Mexico City from several residentia areas to their workplaces for the past 3 years, and now working alongside public transit operators we are working to offer the technology benefits to a much larger user base that relies on this mean of transportation. The outcome has shown consistent growth, both in transactions and in user base in one of Mexico´s bussiest public transfer hubs: Indios Verdes; nevertheless there is still a large list of unattended areas where Jetty and it´s technology could enter and bring the benefits of our platform to a much larger user and operators base. 

Nowadays, public transit relies on a loosely regulated network of operators  with no accurate or useful information shared to the users, whom end up being the ultimate victim of this poorly organized system usualy depending only on the information they can get on site from other users. Jetty´s technology creates a channel between the final user and the operators, where communication, information, and payments occur as long as the user needs to. This allows the public transit operators to get to know their users thhrough real-time and historical data, feedback and their preferences, something impossible without technology. 

This information is generated even before the users have had their first ride, this allows the operators for a better user knowledge and needs, and potentially could provide useful insights to local authorities for a better city planning. Finally, our technology provides a tool for traceabiluty in case of covid-19 detected cases, reducing consideraly the chances of outbreaks and reducing the response time considerably to detect the users involved. 

All of the metioned above is a scalable solution, regardless the number of users or operators that require the technology. 

Currently, Jetty has served more than 150,000 registered users and 25,000 unique active users m in its almost four year history. With the opening of this year’s new cities in Mexico we expect to serve up to 50,000 active users by 2020. We have transformed the everyday lives of thousands of Mexicans who needed a better public transport.

Due to quarantine there has been a shift of the profile of our users. For example, in our pilot program in Toluca +90% of our users are women. The project was built  alongside with the Secretariat of Mobility from the State of Mexico, two important public transit operators from that state, the Interamerican Development Bank and ITDP. This project provides an exclusive commute for health workers traveling to and from four covid-19 hospitals in the city of Toluca.  This service was created based on data that the medical staff provided to hospitals through an online poll. 

Practically every user that uses our platform becomes a regular rider, therefore creating a bond with them and a security perception towards the service itself. At the same time, we offer the bus operators certainty about their income. In five years we expect to grow these types of programs and offer our service through the main cities in latin america. To address this we make public transportation a real business option for owners and a safe option for users. 

- Number of seats sold per day: >5000

- driver rating: >4.8/5 stars

- number of contagions traced to trip: 2 (once we received news a passenger had fallen ill, we contacted everyone who traveled on that trip and identified a second passenger who experienced symptoms and later tested positive).

18 full-time staff , 1 part-time staff and 2 contractors, focused on a) tech-development (maintaining and improving our admin, apps); b) operations (leveraging data to expand and improve services); c) customer-support (live-communication channel with passengers, gaining insights from complaints and suggestions) and d) growth (user-acquiring, engaging and recruiting new clients).

Onesimo Flores and Cristina Palacios co-founded Jetty. Onesimo developed the idea while completing his PhD at MIT. His dissertation explored the conditions under which planning and regulatory functions could be "reinserted" into informal transport industries in Mexico City and Santiago, Chile. He knows the jitney industry, its flaws, idiosyncracy and potential. Cristina is an experienced entrepreneur. In 2010, she founded Aventones, a successful ridesharing company in Mexico City (later acquired by BlaBlaCar). She has substantial operations experience, and runs a tight ship.

Compared to most tech-enabled transportation services, our organization has a distinct strategy. We work to make better the transport industry, to reduce contagium and to offer a business viability in times of crisis. We do not exploit workers to make our business model work.We improve worker conditions to obtain higher quality service (which makes our business work). This approach is substantially more complicated, as it involves transforming the way this industry is currently organized, and requires earning trust from skeptical authorities, drivers, and passengers. We are uniquely positioned to take on this challenge: Not only do we know the ins and outs of transportation in Latam. We know how to develop user friendly technology with a limited budget in times of crisis. And most importantly, we how to nurture relationships with governments, jitney and minibus operators.

We are based in Mexico City, with operations and projects to transport essential staff in 5 cities. We offer a safe, on-demand and smart business that prevents covid-19 contagium. 

Jetty is still a small team, roughly 50% male 50% female at our peak pre pandemic (we recently had to cut down our headcount). We want to keep that ratio as we scale. 

Being selected as a Solver allowed us to scale our impact. Now we want to grow and deploy our low-cost hybrid system that allows a contagion-free public transport. A model in which Jetty's app-mediated electronic payments, seat assignment, customer support and trip rating systems coexist (in the same vehicle) with traditional cash fare collection, loosely-controlled drivers, and flexible vehicle and trip assignments. We need to hire (and direct) 10 new developers to improve UX and UI in our apps, automate customer support and prepare our backend to manage >500 transport operators. 

We need mentors, strategic partners, and access to peers facing similar challenges. Of course we need funding. But we also want to dip into MIT´s pool of insights and hacks for our solution can grow in latinamerica. 

We believe that the multistakeholder approach is the best to further develop Jetty's pilots all through latinamerica. We are interested in organizations focused on solving the health risks of riding in public transport. 

MIT Transit Lab.

New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO).

UITP.

Development banks in the region: World Bank, CAF, IDB Lab. 

Similar, scaled up companies in our space like SWVL (Egypt), Shuttl (India) and Grab (Singapur, Malaysia).