Moovit recently surveyed its Washington, D.C. users about upcoming Metro closings and found significant anxiety among public transit riders – not surprising considering 45 percent of those surveyed use the Metro daily. With heavy-use lines experiencing closures throughout the summer and autumn months, the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) predicts hundreds of thousands of week-day trips will be affected. According to Moovit, 49 percent of users surveyed said they were “very concerned” about the shutdowns and 23 percent said they were “concerned.” The closure that is by far causing anxiety for the largest number of people is the red line shutdown with 49 percent saying that will most impact them.
Survey results also show that the closures won’t just be a headache for the 67 percent of riders who rely on the Metro to get to work. At least 40 percent of respondents report using the Metro in their leisure time – possibly accounting for the 69 percent who said they use the system at least once or twice a week – for activities such as going to concerts, sporting events, bars and clubs or just visiting with friends and family. If they are close enough, Moovit’s bike share option might be especially useful for the last activity.
The transit app, which combines real-time information from both public transit operators and live crowdsourced data from users, aims to ease those concerns and take away some of the pain the service disruptions will likely cause. Some of the solutions Moovit users can expect include:
- Up-to-the-minute updates on bus bridges
- Recommendations on the fastest alternate routes
- Step-by-step directions to use the bike share option for shorter trips
- Push notifications about unexpected delays beyond subway closings
- Offering Uber as an option for part or all of a trip
“Moovit helps our users smooth out some of the bumps expected in an average transit experience, but we hope to be especially useful in an extraordinarily challenging situation such as the one Washington D.C. is facing,” said Alex Mackenzie Torres, Moovit CMO. “By offering real-time information about the closures as they happen and integrating other transit options such as ride-sharing services and bike share, Moovit will help relieve some of the stress for our D.C.-area users during the coming months.”
