Contagion-free Public Transport: Jetty

The demand for public transport around the world plummeted due to the Covid outbreak. As a result this industry is in peril, compromising the viability of sustainable cities. How will public transit in developing cities maintain its viability? What service adjustments need to be adopted to minimize risk of contagion?

Jetty is an app-based collective transport platform operating in Mexico since 2017. We have improved the service of hundreds of quasi-informal transit operators by using big data, GIS and crowdsourced services to dignify the work for drivers and enhance passenger experience. Now we made our technology available to operators with features that emphasize contagion prevention. 

If scaled globally, Jetty would help prevent future outbreaks and help the industry earn back passenger's trust. In turn, we would help prevent massive purchase of private vehicles, and positively impact the life of millions of people, especially those dependent on quasi informal transit services. 

The coronavirus pandemic has transformed cities as we know them. Public transport is not the exception. Social distancing and mass transit are two concepts that don’t fit well together. According to MOOVIT, there has been a global reduction of public transport ridership down to 70% y 90%. Around the world there has been much discussion around the role of transit systems on covid-19 spread. Recent studies have shown that enclosed places are correlated with coronavirus transmission. 

Jetty has adapted its technology to minimize covid-19 contagion on public transportation, and aim to scale our solutions throughout latin american cities. We provide a: 1) Contagion-free Public Transport by checking temperature to users before riding, obligatory masks and contact-tracing. 2) Personalized experience for both transit operators and users by generating on-demand routes and services depending on the information they provide. Information such as what type of special needs they require (pregnant, disabilities, medical staff).

We are helping public transport providers in Mexican cities reduce their reliance on cash payments, ban passengers that refuse to wear masks, limit the number of seats used, trace who boarded each vehicle, train drivers to sanitize vehicles and take passengers temperature, and inform passengers of exact departure times.

Jetty’s technology helps public transportation operators and passengers connect with each other through a platform that uses big data, GIS and crowdsourced services to provide a safer ride with the following features:

• Seat reservations and off-board, contactless fare payment through software.

• Real time monitoring  the location of vehicles via GPS.

• Demand-responsive location of stops, routes and schedules that help  minimize transfers through GIS and crowdsourcing.

• Passenger evaluation and monitoring of drivers, and real time customer support through an in-app chat.

• Online and offline training for drivers, focusing on  customer service and gender awareness.

• Traceability of infections in case of covid-19 through the app.

• Developed protocols for users and drivers to enforce social distancing for passengers. 

We understand the reluctance to digital transformation and adaptation of technology. For these reasons, we offer immediate benefits: 

• For transit providers: have a safe arrival planning system, supervision and monitoring tools for the drivers.

• For passengers: access information on routes, stops, travel times and frequencies of the services; know who is their driver and vehicle; rate the service and give feedback on the travel experience; have real-time support attended by trained agents before, during and after the trip; possibility of recovering forgotten objects in units. 

In recent months, we observed how the covid pandemic affected the public transport system. Service frequency was reduced, and the few vehicles that remained in operation travelled at full capacity. Low-wage, essential employees, who depend on transit for their daily commute, were most affected. Public servants such as medical staff, nurses, and policemen arrive everyday to their jobs to ensure that society has the goods and services necessary to face the pandemic. Staying at home is not an option for them. 

Unfortunately medical staff such as nurses and doctors have recently faced attacks on public transport.  Governments and transit operators must take extraordinary measures to enforce social distancing and onboard contagion prevention   protocols. So, how can we appease passengers, reassure drivers, and provice safe transport to all amidst the COVID-19 outbreak? 

In Jetty we seek to benefit inhabitants of large, dense  cities by leveraging our technology to minimize the risk of COVID 19 contagion onboard public transit. An option that is contactless and promotes social distancing on collective transport. An option that enables heroes who fight everyday against COVID-19 to get to the war zone safely everyday. And prepares the cities for a safe return to the new normality. 

In the last decades, an international effort has been developed to address the negative externalities of choosing a car as the main travel choice in major cities. Covid-19 is changing behaviors and policies, and may push people back to single occupancy vehicles. Fear of contagion on transit may boost car sales and trigger other deadly threats to public health such as air pollution and congestion stress.

Jetty’s solution is aligned to the challenge because we adapt existing public transit services to the post-COVID reality. We help prepare major cities in latinamerica maintain their viability  and manage emerging (and recurring) pandemics. 

Compared to most tech-enabled transportation services, our organization has a distinct strategy. We do not replace the existing transport industry. We make it better using innovation and technology. In Mexico and in many Latin American countries public transportation is far removed from technology. While there are many “new mobility” tech companies, none share our commitment to working with the existing transportation industry (one composed of thousands of small scale, semi-formal operators). Jetty scales the benefits of the digital economy to a larger territory and to a much bigger demographic of passengers, operators and drivers. 

Earning the trust of the traditional industry and governments is hard, and yet we are making significant progress. Our evolving partnership with the local governments of San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León and Estado de México; with the main transportation operators in Ecatepec and San Luis Potosi gives us a unique competitive advantage. And makes us more likely to lead to a scalable and equitable business model. 

Time spent on mobile devices in Mexico is among the highest in the world. Penetrations of smartphones run deep, and acceptance of digital transactions is growing more than ever during COVID-19. However, benefits of app-based mobility in Mexico- and further in latinamerica- are mostly limited to users of taxi-like services which are expensive. 

Our technology identifies areas with unmet passenger demand, facilitates decisions to limitate vehicle occupancy for safe distancing, and enables contactless payments. It provides operators with information on vehicle, route and driver performance, and gives drivers access to passenger feedback. We have two passenger apps (iOS/Android), one driver app and one admin. From the passenger app, users insert their desired origin and destination, and are matched to nearby ride options preventing them from waiting on public stops. Users book seats from the app. Their ticket displays information on the pick-up point, the identity of the driver, the location of the vehicle and covid-19 measures. Passengers receive notifications in case of delays and can chat with our customer team. Drivers check-in each passenger, offer sanitizer for their hands, check if they have a mask on and measure their temperature. After alighting, passengers provide feedback and rate their experience. 

Jetty systems are developed and maintained based on an open source language. We use big data to adjust the service to the needs of our customers.User applications are native to Android and iOS, and our routes are crowdsourced based on the user's demand. 

Jetty is a platform that connects users, drivers and owners of public transportation. Our technology has been used since 2017 by more than 25,000 unique users, +300 drivers, 21 transportation operators and three local governments. Our app has more than 150 k downloads, and it is rated by its users on the App Store with a 4.8 of 5,and in PlayStore with 3.2 of 5 as well. You can see our demo of how Jetty works and how we work with contactless payments.

Recently, a discussion paper about Jetty was featured by The International Transport Forum of the OECD. Under the name “App-Based Collective Transport Service in Mexico City: A Start-Up Case Study Discussion Paper.” In this paper we detail the history of Jetty. It sets out the origins of the idea, recounts the strong competitive and regulatory pushback Jetty has faced, and evaluates Jetty’s current growth and impact.  

Covid-19 has far outpaced the capacity of public transport and their ability to adapt, establish, sustain and expand high quality safe-transit alternatives. Jetty provides a solution to this challenge by concrete actions. Through Jetty, the public transport operators and drivers receive access to resources related to prevent diseases. For example, tutorials on how to sanitize vehicles, take passengers temperature and use our tech. Also users receive a protocol on how to travel safely. With these actions, society gains awareness of the role of prevention and safe distancing in mitigating  contagium at public transport. 

Our short term goal is to broadcast successful pilots. Experiments where the public demonstrates a shift in their mobility decisions; for example, reducing the use of cars and traveling safely in shared vehicles. Authorities engage and use data technology for evidence based policies on mobility to prevent the spread of diseases. Public Transportation operators enhance the quality of their services.  In the long term outcome we seek that users, drivers, operators and public servants accept a tech driven solution as fundamental to tackle a large scale mobility problem. 

Currently, Jetty has served more than 150,000 registered users and 25,000  in its almost four year history. With the opening of this year’s new cities in Mexico we expect to serve up to 50,000 active users by 2020. We have transformed the everyday lives of thousands of Mexicans who needed a better public transport.

Due to quarantine there has been a shift of the profile of our users. For example, in our pilot program in Toluca +90% of our users are women. The project was built  alongside with the Secretariat of Mobility from the State of Mexico, two important public transit operators from that state, the Interamerican Development Bank and ITDP. This project provides an exclusive commute for health workers traveling to and from four covid-19 hospitals in the city of Toluca.  This service was created based on data that the medical staff provided to hospitals through an online poll. 

Practically every user that uses our platform becomes a regular rider, therefore creating a bond with them and a security perception towards the service itself. At the same time, we offer the bus operators certainty about their income. In five years we expect to grow these types of programs and offer our service through the main cities in latin america. To address this we make public transportation a real business option for owners and a safe option for users.

Jetty’s objectives for 2020 changed as a result of coronavirus policies. We went from looking to offer our service of van-pooling in more cities in Mexico, to a reinvention of our business model and service to address coronavirus challenges. Currently, we are working to offer our technology as a white label for governments, public transportation owners and organizations interested in adequating their service. 

Our main objective to 2020-2025 is to become the main technology used by public transport systems in latinamerica and transform the quality of this service for their users. A better, safer and on-demand transport service in developing countries is possible. We believe that our technology can help to achieve this objective by growing, scaling and replication our business in the 20 main cities in latinamerica in the next five years.

We seek to address the covid-19 crisis in transport by partnering with local governments, organizations and businesses interested in using technology. In the long term, we seek to include technologies that work offline, and make our service more inclusive.

Since Jetty was founded we have faced regulatory hurdles and resistance to implement digital transformation. Traditionally, the transport industry has been reluctant to change. Unfortunately, the perception that app- based mobility contributes to congestion, inequality, gentrification and other evils widespread with local governments and public transport owners. Perhaps this is a consequence of observing the impacts of “new mobility” services in the more developed world, and of assuming their impact will be similar everywhere. 

With coronavirus this idea needs to change. Ironically, the tool that can help them survive the current crisis is technology. We are attacking a different problem in a very different context. Public transport regulation around covid-19 is being weakly enforced. Labor rights of drivers in the incumbent jitney industry are not respected, and passengers are mistreated constantly. 

Jetty needs a sandbox to develop new and bolder solutions to enhance passenger safety in pandemic. Companies like ours would benefit tremendously from an environment that rewards risk taking and experimentation as we have done with Toluca and San Pedro. Our focus and limited resources are better employed improving passenger experience in a secure way than on lobbying for new opportunities. But even in the face of adverse circumstances, and of tremendous technological, competitive and regulatory challenges, companies like Jetty will find a way to offer a contagion-free Public Transport.

Our main strategy to overcome future regulatory hurdles and resistance challenges is to make passengers, drivers, operators and governments happy on our pilot programs around our actions to prevent contagium. These three groups need to be our most vocal supporters. We are documenting and publicizing our impact, with allies such as BID, ITDP and news anchors.

We are seeking to implement more pilot programs for essential personel. For example in San Pedro, after a month of trial without publicity and funding, we have a 50% occupancy of the routes. We believe that as our business model becomes more well known, more jitney associations and governments are willing to try our tech. For these reason, during quarantine we: 

• Accelerated tech development to adapt our service to the current covid-19 needs and measures 
• Transformed our business model. 

We are interested in developing more partnerships to fund both strategies. 

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Adopting digital transformation to resolve public health challenge through mobility is, literally, quite a ride. Jetty’s team is ideal to deliver the solution because of its professional and diverse background. We employ 18 full time staff, 1 part-time staff and 2 contractors, focused on: 

• Tech development: maintaining and improving our admin, passenger and driver apps; 
• Operations leveraging data to expand service areas, improve scheduling and evaluate driver performance; 
• Customer support: managing a two-way, real time communication channel with passengers
• Growth: acquiring users, engaging and recruiting new operators and governments. 

We currently work with different organizations who employ around 2,000 individuals.

Onesimo Flores and Cristina Palacios co-founded Jetty. Onesimo developed the idea while completing his PhD at MIT. His dissertation explored the conditions under which planning and regulatory functions could be "reinserted" into informal transport industries in Mexico City and Santiago, Chile. He knows the jitney industry, its flaws, idiosyncracy and potential. Cristina is an experienced entrepreneur. In 2010, she founded Aventones, a successful ridesharing company in Mexico City (later acquired by BlaBlaCar). She has substantial operations experience, and runs a tight ship.

Compared to most tech-enabled transportation services, our organization has a distinct strategy. We work to make better the transport industry, to reduce contagium and to offer a business viability in times of crisis. We do not exploit workers to make our business model work.We improve worker conditions to obtain higher quality service (which makes our business work). This approach is substantially more complicated, as it involves transforming the way this industry is currently organized, and requires earning trust from skeptical authorities, drivers, and passengers. We are uniquely positioned to take on this challenge: Not only do we know the ins and outs of transportation in Latam. We know how to develop user friendly technology with a limited budget in times of crisis. And most importantly, we how to nurture relationships with governments, jitney and minibus operators.

We are based in Mexico City, with operations and projects to transport essential staff in 5 cities. We offer a safe, on-demand and smart business that prevents covid-19 contagium. 

• Multi- stakeholder Approach: In collaboration with ITDP/BID, Government of Estado de México and private transportation companies we developed a pilot model for secure transport offered to medical staff who work in the hospitals that attend covid-19 in Toluca, Estado de México.
• Governments: Currently, a partnership with the local government of San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León is running. San Pedro’s government is using or tech to offer a safer transportation program to their essential personnel such as medical staff, police and public servants.
• NGOs: During quarantine, we allied with several local NGOS in Mexico city to provide free and safe transportation of goods to hospitals. A few examples. With “Comida Solidaria” we partnered with a group of chefs, companies and civil society organizations (Gastromotiva, Por tu Hogar, Initiative Agroecológica de Xochimilco AC, Yolcan, Quintonil)to offer free daily meals to people from scarce resources in the context of the health emergency units. Currently, meals are taken daily to Hospital XXI and INER, where we provide them our technology for logistic delivery. Another example, in collaboration with “Ya Respondiste Foundation” we deliver 150 to 300 balanced daily servings to Mexico City’s public hospitals. The transportation is funded by Jetty users who donated money to help these organizations and maintain the job of our drivers. 
• Business: We partner with several jitney organizations. 
• Academy: Working with the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Prof Manos Chaniotakis, Alejandro Tirachini, and Antoniou Constantinos evaluated Jetty´s impact on Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). 

In the past years we applied a hybrid B2B-B2C business model. On the B2B side, we offered our services to large companies interested in offering a better public transport to their employees. On the B2C public transportation we delivered our services directly to individual consumers through our app. 

Currently, we transformed our business model almost entirely to B2B by transforming our technology into a product that can be white labeled and offered to local governments, public transportation companies and entrepreneurs interested in launching jetty in their cities.

We provide three main products with benefits in the white label scheme 

• Technology for personal and school transportation: Greater added value for your customers by offering technology to monitor vehicle location, hours and points of ascent / descent; driver supervision thanks to user feedback; optimization of frequencies and schedules; 
• Public Transport: Mayor control over the operation and payments; supervision of drivers via user's feedback; optimization of frequencies and schedules; training for drivers in customer service and gender perspective.
• Government agency: develop public innovation policies, use data for public decisions.

Before, covid-19 we were a profitable start-up company operating in Mexico City. Due to the pandemics measures our demand dropped down to 90%. Our path to regain our sustainable growth is shifting our business model. Now we work as an entire tech company that offers its services with a set-up fee and link our commission with their sales. This strategy commits Jetty in the success of the project. 

We seek two main goals vinculantes with our growth. First, is to regain the possibility to break even by closing more clients around Mexico an latinamerica. And second, we wish to accelerate our expansion next year through investment. To achieve this, our technology needs to go hand in hand with our growth. We are working on this by developing covid-19 related features. 

Being selected as a Solver allowed us to scale our impact. Now we want to grow and deploy our low-cost hybrid system that allows a contagion-free public transport. A model in which Jetty's app-mediated electronic payments, seat assignment, customer support and trip rating systems coexist (in the same vehicle) with traditional cash fare collection, loosely-controlled drivers, and flexible vehicle and trip assignments. We need to hire (and direct) 10 new developers to improve UX and UI in our apps, automate customer support and prepare our backend to manage >500 transport operators. 

We need mentors, strategic partners, and access to peers facing similar challenges. Of course we need funding. But we also want to dip into MIT´s pool of insights and hacks for our solution can grow in latinamerica. 

We believe that the multistakeholder approach is the best to further develop Jetty's pilots all through latinamerica. We are interested in organizations focused on solving the health risks of riding in public transport. 

MIT Transit Lab.

New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO).

UITP.

Development banks in the region: World Bank, CAF, IDB Lab. 

Similar, scaled up companies in our space like SWVL (Egypt), Shuttl (India) and Grab (Singapur, Malaysia).

One way to assure that the fourth industrial revolution is more inclusive is by bringing diversity into the  of leadership roles of tech companies. Our Co-CEO Cristina Palacios has proven her work to transform mobility industry with tech by introducing a gender perspective in all the projects developed by Jetty. For example, the latest experiment to reduce the risk of traveling for essential personnel in Estado de México. The project offers a contagion-free public transport for medical staff working in hospitals in Toluca, 90% of the passengers were women. 

This rate is extraordinary considering that women avoid jitney rides in Mexico City. Official surveys report over 70% women in this city have decreased transit usage for fear of sexual harassment. Jetty clearly helps solve this problem. By making rides less congested and drivers more accountable, we are fostering a much more inclusive environment for female commuters. Seems to be working. Women make a larger percentage of our user base than men (inverse ratio is true for regular jitneys.)

We need to hire (and direct) new developers to improve UX and UI in our apps, automate customer support and prepare our backend to manage >500 transport operators. We need to absorb part of the revenue risk of limited-time pilots (to accelerate operator recruitment) and put together a sound strategy in anticipation of regulatory challenges.

Jetty works to develop more sustainable cities by attending several SDG goals. We believe that our solution brings promotes good health and well being by offering contagium-free transport; we help develop industry, innovation and infrastructure in latinamerica mobility industry; we promote more sustainable cities and communities by offering a service that prevents the negative externalities of the increasing use of cars; we promote climate action by assuring the use of shared-based mobility.