A few months ago, we had Ride Report's Senior Business Development Manager, Dana Bacharach, share her insights on Ride Report's distinction. Since then, we have gained a new Growth Development Manager, Kory Young. Since joining Ride Report, he has hit the ground running (scooting?), meeting with cities and government agencies across the world to learn more about their shared mobility needs. We have asked Kory to share his insights on three factors to consider when choosing a mobility data platform.
Kory's perspective
I’m lucky enough to work with cities all over the world, at all different stages in their shared mobility journey. If I’ve learned anything throughout the process, it’s that each city is slightly different, and as a result, their program needs and outcomes can vary greatly. Additionally, the shared mobility industry continues to evolve rapidly - new modes emerge, different ways of structuring programs and creating regulations come and go, data standards improve and change, and with that, so too do the solutions and tools cities are using to manage it all.
For the cities we work with, it can be difficult to understand how much data you need, which analysis is most impactful, and in some cases, which solutions will help you get there. So how do you choose tools to manage it all? Here are the three key factors to consider when making your decision.
Ease of use
Having all of the data in the world is useless if there isn’t an efficient and easy way to process and understand it. Moreover, mobility data can be technical in nature. Our clients need tools that are intuitive and dynamic to allow them to manage their programs more efficiently. Whether that means an intuitive interface for analyzing program statistics, or informative tooltips to provide different metric definitions, we want to take the guesswork out of managing shared mobility data. That’s why we build tailored solutions with the user experience at the forefront.
Operator management
Private-public partnership is the key to what we do, and crucial to a successful shared mobility program. We’ve heard from the government agencies we work with how time-consuming it is to coordinate with multiple operators, proactively communicate changes, and align on program outcomes. We believe a mobility data solution should make working with private operators easier and improve coordination. That’s why we created a private operator dashboard for every agency we work with, to create a seamless way for our cities to communicate about the program with their operators, share areas and policies, and view the program from both the private and public via a single source of truth.
Data trustworthiness
Not all data is created equal, and the quality and accuracy of the data you use to inform policy decisions, enforce regulations, and communicate program performance should be a top priority. While the industry has made huge strides forward in the last few years, we’ve heard from the government agencies that data inconsistencies are still a large challenge for many programs. That’s why we have implemented several data quality checks before we mark metrics final, actively triage data issues with your operators, and built an industry leading data health feature to continually monitor the quality and accuracy of the data we are ingesting. We believe any data you are viewing should be wholly reflective of the truth on the ground.
At the end of the day, Ride Report's team is focused on building solutions that best meet the needs of shared mobility programs. That why it is important for us to maintain an open dialogue with cities and agencies to best understand the evolving market. We listen to our clients because we care about their success.
If you are interested in learning more, fill out the form below and Kory will be in touch!