Kitsap Transit Awards 5-Year Contract to The Routing Co.

The Routing Company (TRC) received a contract from Kitsap Transit (KT) to expand on-demand transit service. The five-year contract expands existing on-demand service to three services (KT’s Kingston Ride, SK Ride, and Sunday service), beginning with the reintroduction of KT Sunday service.

KT is the transit agency in Kitsap County, Wash., part of the Puget Sound region. TRC has been serving KT with on-demand transit for over two years, having moved over 50,000 passengers through KT’s Pingo-powered “BI Ride” service on Bainbridge Island.

Contract Extension

Under the new service, with rollout starting September 2023, on-demand and flexible service will be available across three new zones in Kitsap County with service days expanding throughout the entire week, bringing the total number of Pingo-powered services in Kitsap County to four.

TRC will deliver on-demand transit by leveraging its full suite of Pingo products — including flexible on-demand and enhanced fixed route services — and features such as Pingo Journey™, Pingo Flex™, and Transit Connect™.

The TRC Pingo App

Launched in October 2022, Pingo Journey integrates TRC’s real-time routing technology with public transport infrastructure, allowing riders to hail on-demand transport rides and plan multimodal transport journeys all from the single Ride Pingo app. The feature makes Pingo the world’s only app offering on-demand transport and end-to-end journey planning in one place.

Pingo Flex™ provides greater flexibility for traditionally fixed transit routes. Operators get more out of existing services by keeping scheduled stops, while adding on-demand elements to improve service responsiveness in high density or intermittently peak demand routes, according to TRC.

Transit Connect™ guarantees connections for riders to fixed-route networks using real-time data. The feature was developed by TRC as a solution to improve the rider experience and guarantee a connection to onward transit modes.

The contract marks a significant expansion beyond Bainbridge Island, where KT has operated its on-demand BI Ride service six days a week (Monday through Saturday) since July 2021. The contract adds the Pingo platform to KT’s two other on-demand services (Kingston Ride and SK Ride) and its future rollout of Sunday service to the Bainbridge, Bremerton, Port Orchard, Poulsbo, and Silverdale regions.