Daruma Tech partnered with FAU and Kresge Foundation to create a multimodal transportation app for students-URIDE

As part of their study, Researchers in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida Atlantic University, envisioned a mobile app that could provide information to students about available public transport. Now, they aim to expand the project and enhance the U-RIDE app by making it more useful, appealing, and engaging for users.

Client Overview

The Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida Atlantic University serves both students and active planning professionals through teaching, research, and community engagement. The Department’s mission is “to prepare planning professionals and researchers for national and global practice by promoting the ideals of social responsibility, sustainability, equity, diversity, and public service.”

Client: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida Atlantic University
Location: Boca Raton, Florida
Industry: Transportation, Education and Research
Daruma Tech Services Provided: UI/UX app design, Development, Maintenance, Marketing, Project Management, and Consultant.

Challenge

By leveraging the power of environmental and health benefits gamification as well as incentives, the challenge is to make riding public transportation an attractive and sustainable choice for the surrounding community. Through this initiative, the focus is to reduce carbon emissions, promote local businesses but also contribute to a more eco-friendly and connected community. Marketing initiatives will be taken place to increase awareness and attract more users.

Discovery

Daruma Tech understood that building a high-quality product and providing a positive user experience was the team’s first priority to ensure long-term success. Some enhancements facilitate user experience including onboarding new app users (instructions for first-time users, autofill for login), while others support user retention by improving trip planning (push notification for mode transfer, ETA refresh).

Solution & Implementation

Our solution for U-Ride 3 included:

  • Enhanced User Experience
  • Improved Trip Planning
  • Environmental and Health Benefits Gamification
  • Marketing materials to help advertise and acquire new app users

Technologies used:

  • React Native – Cross-platform mobile development framework to deploy iOS and Android applications
  • Open Trip Planner – multimodal journey planning system that runs algorithms that produce optimized trip planning options for our users
  • Various types and sources of data – Real-Time and Static General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) feeds of public transit agencies, General Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS) feeds for other micro-mobilities options, and APIs from other transportation agencies

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