Transdev Blazefield is in the process of finalising its new VAMOOZ app that promises to bring the concept of crowdsourcing to the bus industry
Many businesses are turning to
alternative means in order to finance business expansion with
crowdsourcing amongst the most popular method, but could the trend be
about to make its debut in the bus industry?
Next year Harrogate-based operator
Transdev Blazefield will launch a new app – VAMOOZ – that could turn on
its head the way in which transport operators seek to launch new
services. It has its origins as a simple response to a familiar issue –
not so much crowdsourcing but overcrowding.
The operator was experiencing capacity
issues in the morning peak on its flagship 36 service between Ripon and
Harrogate. It was as a result of a large number of young people
travelling to school in Harrogate on the 36, creating overcrowding
problems.
“We wanted to see if there was another
way we could accommodate the pupils,” explains Alex Hornby, Transdev
Blazefield’s chief executive. “So we approached the parents and asked if
any of them would be willing to commit to sending their children to
school on a dedicated school bus.”
Over a two-week period 70 parents said
they would be willing to pay for their children to use the dedicated
door-to-door service and committed to buying season tickets that not
only include travel on this dedicated school bus, but the rest of the
Harrogate bus network too. As more and more parents came onboard the
overall cost to all reduced.
Meanwhile, those parents who had signed
up to the service also became champions for it, influencing friends who
were also parents of children at the school to sign up and make their
commitment to the dedicated school bus service. As Hornby notes, the
operator was unknowingly heading down the crowdsourcing route.
“Many of these school bus routes have
followed the same route for many, many years, but it means that some
locations have just never been served by bus and some people have just
slipped off the radar as the bus has just never been an option for them.
“I think there are lots of opportunities
for us to speak to parents and establish where there is real need. There
must be lots of untapped demand in my view. The experience suggests
they will be willing to pay for it if it’s tailored to their needs, if
it offers them real convenience and if the whole thing is done in a
proper way. It also means we can ensure the service has the stability,
from a financial point of view, it needs for success. We’re not trying
something with this to see if it will work, we know it will work as
we’ve had these people commit financially to using it.”
The good fortune of these initial
tentative steps towards crowdsourcing school bus routes has led Hornby
and his team to explore other places and opportunities where the concept
could be utilised in order to open up new markets and revenue streams.
Key to this is the operator’s school bus
fleet. These vehicles are typically parked up outside the traditional
travel to school times. This combination has led to the creation of the
VAMOOZ app which will be launched in the coming months.
“We wanted to create an app that would
help the business,” says Hornby. “We wanted something useful rather than
something that was an app for app’s sake, or tech for tech’s sake. We
also wanted to increase the utilisation of the fleet, particularly the
school buses, so we began to start thinking about day trips.”
VAMOOZ (incidentally the name was chosen
to ensure something memorable and, more importantly, not already used by
other smartphone apps in the marketplace) will see Transdev Blazefield
launch trips to destinations that are currently unserved by its
conventional bus network. These destinations could include places like
shopping centres, such as Meadowhall near Sheffield and the Trafford
Centre outside Manchester, and trips to sporting events, concerts and
music festivals too, as well as potentially more traditional visits to
towns and cities of interest across the north of England.
VAMOOZ app users will browse the range of
destinations on offer or, alternatively, make a suggestion for a trip
of their own choosing. They will then commit to travel on that trip at
the price offered by the app but uniquely this price will reduce as more
and more users commit to travel.
Key to helping stimulate that demand, and
thinking of the example of the parents in Ripon who became advocates
for the dedicated school bus service, is that users making a commitment
will be invited to share their travel plans with friends on social media
and by email in a bid to encourage them to travel too. As more and more
people commit, the lower the price becomes to all.
“It’s a way of looking at destinations
that we don’t already serve that could have the potential to become
regular services,” says Hornby. “We’re also empowering people to suggest
a trip and then getting them to help promote it amongst their friends
and family. As each person signs up, the cost of the trip comes down.
The more demand that is created, the lower the price becomes.”
He adds that this could see VAMOOZ users suggesting not only trips to points of interest or nearby towns and cities, but also, potentially, creating new links to workplaces in a move that could allow for expansion of the Transdev Blazefield network.
“It has the potential to open up new opportunities, like services to industrial estates and places
where historically it has been hard to stimulate demand,” Hornby
continues. “We could go into the workplace and assess the level of
demand with the pricing reflecting that demand too. That turns the way
we create bus services on its head.”
Development of the app is currently in
the process of being finalised and it is hoped that a formal launch of
VAMOOZ could take place at around Easter of 2017.
