Think your local commute is bad? Maybe, but at least you're not in Moscow.

In the Aug 2 eition of The New Yorker Magazine, writer Keith Gessen offers a grim account of the gridlock that grips the Russian capital.

Gessen presents the source of the city's traffic challenges as part historical (Moscow's early rulers built the city as a concentric series of walled forts, with the Kremlin at the center, preventing the diversion of traffic to side roads), part political (the city's elite are afforded driving privileges that serve to cripple the regular flow of traffic), and part cultural (while sitting stuck in traffic is not desireable, it beats the endless lines endured by Muscovites during communist rule). 

The article also discusses the innovative approach taken by Yandex, Russia's largest internet company, in the display of real-time traffic data throughout the city. While other cities use sensors embedded in the pavement to measure traffic flow, in Moscow these have a hard time surviving both the weather and the road repairs the weather necessitates. So, Yandex asks drivers to download software onto their GPS-equipped mobile devices so to that information about their movements can be sent automatically to the Yandex servers. As the program grows, Yandex is able to give an increasingly accurate and encompassing picture of Moscow's traffic situation at any given moment. 

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.

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.

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.