Swiftly acquires Hopthru to add ridership analysis and NTD reporting to its transit data platform

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Swiftly, the leading transit data platform, today announced its acquisition of Hopthru. The move adds Hopthru's industry-leading ridership data and analytics to Swiftly's platform, giving agencies powerful ways to access, clean, monitor, and analyze ridership data for NTD reporting, service planning, scheduling, and more.

"Hopthru enables transit agencies to understand the demand and travel patterns throughout their systems. Combining these insights with Swiftly's transit data platform offers agencies a unique solution to improve service efficiency and provide a better passenger experience," says Cole Calhoun, CEO at Hopthru. "We are thrilled to join Swiftly as the next step on our mission to help make public transportation the most compelling mode of urban travel."

"We're excited to see Swiftly acquire Hopthru to provide a holistic view of how transit service impacts riders," says Katie Persons, Director of Service Planning at the North County Transit District. "Combining Swiftly's transit data platform with Hopthru's ridership data opens up new methods of analysis and decision-making to provide the best-possible passenger experience for our community."

Extending Swiftly's modular transit data platform

Critical transit performance data is often difficult to retrieve and analyze due to outdated, siloed technology. Swiftly has taken a standards-based, open-data approach to providing agencies with accurate, accessible data. As a result, Swiftly's platform has evolved as a dynamic, modular, flexible solution that agencies can adopt without replacing their existing onboard hardware.

The addition of Hopthru to the Swiftly platform extends this approach to ridership data, enabling agencies to report on ridership based on various sources of passenger count data: through an independent CAD/AVL vendor, a stand-alone APC system, or Swiftly's APC Connector.

Ridership-aware transit analysis

Swiftly's transit data platform transforms raw data into powerful, actionable insights. These insights fuel informed and collaborative decision-making about where to invest in a transit network and how to measure success.

The combined power of Swiftly and Hopthru gives a unique look into the effect that network performance has on riders and vice versa. By marrying information about where every vehicle was, is, and will be with historical ridership trends, Swiftly and Hopthru paint the full picture of the impact that network reliability and efficiency have on riders. From contextualizing speed slowdowns and long dwells to quantifying the expected reach of service changes to informing riders of real-time crowding, real magic happens when ridership data layers onto Swiftly's transit data platform.

Streamlining National Transit Database (NTD) reporting

All federally funded transit operations have some mechanism for counting and reporting ridership data. Hopthru supercharges and streamlines the NTD reporting process by ensuring quality and coverage of passenger count data using an agency's existing ridership data collection methods.

Agencies looking to install automatic passenger counters (APCs) and undergo certification anew will find an elegant end-to-end experience, using Swiftly's APC Connector and Hopthru's NTD certification services. In 2025 the FTA will require agencies to recertify their APCs leading more agencies to need these services.

For agencies with existing passenger counter data, Hopthru can connect directly with the raw data source to build a statistician-certified, expanded data set that alleviates the common pains of accessing and certifying ridership data.

Advancing our mission to help cities move efficiently

Expanding access to new categories of transit data is a critical part of Swiftly's mission to help cities move more efficiently. Together, Swiftly and Hopthru will streamline essential reporting and give the transit industry a completely new way to understand how network performance impacts communities.

"Swiftly's central focus has always been the transit rider experience - helping agencies better communicate with passengers and run reliable, efficient service. With Hopthru's highly accurate ridership data and powerful analytics suite, we're truly putting the rider at the heart of the Swiftly platform," said Jonny Simkin, Swiftly's Co-founder and CEO. "I'm excited about how our combined platforms can unlock incredible insights about the impact of service on ridership, as well as streamline NTD certification."

About Swiftly
Swiftly is the leading transit data platform for agencies to share real-time passenger information, manage day-to-day operations, and improve service performance. Today, over 160 transit agencies in 10 countries—including LA Metro, MARTA, SEPTA, and MBTA—rely on Swiftly to improve on-time performance by up to 40%, increase passenger information accuracy by up to 50%, and analyze transit data 90% faster. The result is better service reliability, increased ridership, and more efficient transit operations. For more information, visit goswift.ly.

About Hopthru
Hopthru provides transit agencies with ridership analytics for data-driven decision-making. Agencies rely on Hopthru to enhance the quality and analysis of ridership data. Hopthru works with agencies including San Diego's North County Transit District, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, and Prince George's County The Bus. Hopthru was founded in 2016 and is based in Seattle, WA.

Sam Bleiberg
Content lead, Swiftly
[email protected]

SOURCE Swiftly, Inc.