Yesterday, we closed the office doors her at Goose Networks and headed across the street to World Cup Alley, to watch the Uruguay v. Netherlands match. In the moments our attention wasn't fixed on the Flying Dutchmen and Diego Forlán's booming shots on goal, we noticed a small display for PARK(ing) Day.

The idea behind PARK(ing) Day is simple enough; a one-day event where artists, activists, and citizens independently but simultanesously transform metered parking spots into 'PARK(ing)' spaces, i.e. temporary public parks. Now an annual event in a handful of cities across the globe, PARK(ing) Day got it's start in San Francisco in 2005. There, an art collective known as Rebar, devised a creative exploration of how urban public space is allocated and used. For example, up to 70% of San Francisco's downtown outdoor space is dedicated to the vehicle, while only a fraction of that space is allocated to the public realm.

Rebar's premise: 'Paying the meter of a parking space enables one to lease precious urban real estate on a short-term basis. What is the range of possible activities for this short-term lease?' The 2005 result was a converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in an area of San Francisco that is underserved by public open space.

Today, PARK(ing) Day has grown into a global project as local organizations have begun to organize events in their own locales. Here in Seattle, the effort is being led by Feet First, a local non-profit dedicated to promoting walkable communities in the Puget Sound region, and is scheduled for Friday, September 17.

After the Netherlands 3-2 win, as I shuffled out of World Cup Alley alongside my 60 or so fellow spectators, I found myself thinking of how nice it was to share an experience with other local office workers, in a space normally reserved for trash pick-up and other less savory activities.

Would PARK(ing) day have a similar positive impact? I cerntainly hope so, though I suspect having the good fortune of a televised international sporting event wouldn't hurt...

Recently, Aaron Antrim, president of Trillium Transit Solutions, was interviewed for the Climate Change Business Journal's Transportation Edition. Here's an excerpt discussing Aaron's perspective on the online ridematching space and what drives successful programs in that space.

Indeed, using information technology to facilitate ridesharing and transit usage appears to be a growing business that can make these low-carbon travel modes more convenient and attractive. “We’ve see an evolution in the technology,” said Aaron Antrim, president of Trillium Transit Solutions (Portland, Ore.), a three-person IT consulting firm that specializes in helping small and medium-sized transit districts migrate their routes and schedules to Google Transit, the trip planner integrated in Google Maps that currently includes data for over 120 U.S. transit agencies.

“At first the iPhone could only plan driving trips, now it plans driving, transit and walking trips,” said Antrim. “Google Maps now includes biking directions, although that hasn’t shown up on the iPhone yet…. I think in the future mobile devices are going to become more and more powerful and useful for finding and comparing travel options, including transit, carpooling, walking, carshare, taxi, all the options, and compare them by cost and even greenhouse gas impact,” said Antrim. “Multimodal trip planning is going to be a killer app on mobile devices.”

Firms like Avego (Kinsale, Ireland) and Goose Networks (Seattle) are marketing web-enabled ridematching and commute management programs. Avego sells a system that incentivizes drivers to pick up passengers along their route because passengers pay a per-mile fee to defray costs. Goose Networks sells software and services to organizations that want to measure and report the impact of their members commute activities.

There are many regional ridesharing and car/vanpooling websites and ser- vices such as San Luis Obispo County’s iRideshare.org, Rideshare.com which sells monthly vanpool commuting packages ($139 a month for a 50-mile roundtrip) in the Northeast and Zimride.com which is focused on college students. And many people use Facebook or Twitter to find and share rides.

“There are many many different websites and companies out there, but few are really working because they’re not getting a critical mass of users,” said Antrim. “What successful companies like Goose Networks and Zimride have found is that they have to target a group of people with similar travel behavior, corporate campuses or educational institutions being the most common. They also need an external incentive or promotional program to sell the idea.” Antrim said the ridesharing business also needs a common data specification to allow potential users to find and compare their options from multiple services. “There are so many different sites and options that the user base is being divided up,” he said. “In fixed route transit, we have the General Transit Feed Specification for schedules, routes and fares. That doesn’t exist yet for carpooling.”

Hot on the heels of our myFleet iPad App, we're excited to announce the release of our new iPhone application.

Now available to Enterprise and Custom Edition customers, this App offers iPhone based schedules, trip planning, and rider alerts. The App is ready for out-of-the-box enterprise deployment, or as a starting point for further customization by an in-house development team.

Call us today to learn more about the capabilities and deployment options for the Goose iPhone App.

Here at Goose Networks, we were excited to get our hands on an early edition of Apple's new touch-screen tablet device, the iPad. 

We've always believed that mobile technology can play a powerful role in influencing transportation habits. And, if you believe any of the recent buzz, it's clear the iPad has the potential to significantly impact mobile computing. 

While we were eager to see the iPad for the same reasons as others -- web-browsing, streaming videos, ebooks -- we were most eager to answer the question, 'What can the iPad do for our customers?' Specifically, how might the iPad serve to compliment our efforts to help customers improve transportation efficiency at their organizations?

So, after tinkering with the iPad for over a week now, what have we found?

For starters, we made a few key observations that shaped our development of the myFleet App. First, we concluded that any initial effort should focus on providing a tool for transportation administrators. While the iPad has proven an early hit with Apple die-hards, it remains to be seen if the device will gain traction with the average consumer. And, until it does, the utility of a broadly targeted apps will be limited.

Second, in order to best leverage the mobility of the iPad, we felt it was important to provide a tool that would have real on-the-go value. Finally, we wanted to take full advantage of unique iPad display elements, namely the split-view navigation and popover displays. 

The result? The Goose myFleet iPad App, an on-the-go tool for shuttle fleet management. With myFleet, transportation administrators can take full advantage of the iPad's remarkable capabilities to:

• View real-time vehicle location
• Access ridership reports
• Manage SMS alerts anytime, anywhere

The myFleet iPad App is currently available to Enterprise and Custom Edition customers. Please contact us to learn more.

Though our web-based schedules offer users universal access -- your riders can access schedules from anywhere they have internet access; from the office, from home, or via mobile phone -- there are occasions when a good, old-fashioned, printed schedule can be helpful.

After hearing the request for print friendly schedules from a number of our customers, we've updated our schedules tool to include an option for printer-friendly PDF timetables.

To access a print friendly version of a schedule, follow these three simple steps:

1. Open your browser window to your organization's shuttle schedules page. (If you're not currently a Goose customer, you can test drive this feature in our web-based schedules live demo.)
2. Next, select a route. This will open the web-based version of this route's schedule.
3. Just above the schedule timetable, and to the right of the route name, you'll see a PDF icon. Simply click this button to download a printer-friendly PDF version of this time timetable. 

Note that if the selected route travels in two directions, the print friendly version will include both directions of that route.

We've been playing with text messaging (SMS) technology at Goose Networks since our early experiments with real-time ridesharing back in 2006. With SMS in our ‘Corporate DNA,’ we were all the more excited to roll out our 'SMS Alerts' feature to clients in late 2009.

With SMS alerts, clients can set up distribution lists (d-lists) for specific shuttle/transit routes (i.e. 'Red Line Alerts') or other groups (i.e. 'General Commuter Alerts'). Users register their mobile phones to receive alerts from one or more list, and program administrators can send out alerts at their convenience via the Admin Control Panel's 'SMS Campaigns' tool.

We like to think that we've kept the feature simple from end-to-end. This was important to us, since things are actually fairly complicated under the hood. What could be complicated about sending text messages? For starters, imagine that you're offering an SMS alerts program for the Red Bus line, and one of your subscribers decides to cancel his cell phone plan and switch to a different operator (with a different phone number). When he does so, his old number will eventually get recycled and given to a new cell phone customer. That person doesn't expect to receive SMS alerts about the Red Line, and will probably consider any such alerts unwanted SPAM. Luckily for you, we've put systems in place to make such an outcome impossible. By working diligently with each of the major US mobile phone operators (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc.), we can track when phone numbers get taken offline or recycled, and automatically unsubscribe them from any our of d-lists before they receive unwanted campaign messages.

While SMS is considerably more complex than email, we've done to our best to hide that complexity behind an extremely simple, intuitive tool; it is our hope that we've been able to make sending an SMS alert as simple as sending an email campaign via the Goose Mailing List manager.

If you're interested in offering SMS Alerts to your riders, please contact us to set up a live demo -- we'd love to show you this tool in action.

The Northwest’s largest pediatric medical and research center, Seattle Children’s Hospital needed creative solutions to manage employee commuting and parking and capture lost revenue.

With the help of a dynamic commuter management system designed by Goose, the hospital has improved its bottom line while encouraging and rewarding the use of alternative transportation.

To learn more about how we helped Seattle Children's to increase parking revenue, reduce demand for on-site parking, and track shuttle ridership, dowload our case study, or read a summary online on our website.

Today, our friends at the Seattle Google office announced the addition of biking directions and extensivee bike trail data to Google Maps for the U.S.

With a nod to all the public support for adding biking directions, and the help of the Rails-toTrails Conservancy in collecting much of the necessary trail data, Google flipped the switch to allow users to receive directions by car, public transit, walking, or biking when planning trips on Google Maps.

The route planner considers bicycle facilities, topography, intersection quality, and traffic to plan directions. Detailed bicycle infrastructure information (bike lanes, boulevards, etc.) is available for about 150 cities in the U.S.

You can learn all about the many factors and variables taken into account on Google's Lat Long Blog. Or, for a quick 2-minute overview of using biking directions, watch this helpful video.

Every day some of the world’s most respected companies and organizations depend on Goose's commuter management technology to promote, administer, and measure the impacts of their transportation initiatives. 

To help tell their story, and illustrate how your organization can leverage Goose technology to promote your own sustainable transportation goals, we're producing a series of customer case studies.

Our first case study profiles Venture, CA based Patagonia. Download the full-length case study (2 page) as a PDF, or read a summary online on our website.

This month marks the first of Goose Networks' monthly e-newsletters.   

On a more-or-less monthly basis, we'll be emailing out news to help keep our customers and friends informed of new features, service enhancements, and tips & suggestions on how to get the most out of our products. Occasionally, we'll include general news on efforts to advance sustainable transportation.

If you missed the February edition, you can view our first newsletter online.

We use the same technology to build the Goose e-newsletter that we provide to our customers. So, if you like what you see, give us a call and we'd be happy to help you with a newsletter to promote your initiatives within your organization.