HopSkipDrive is constantly striving to bring more innovation and efficiency to our clients by building new features in RideIQ. We’re especially invested in delivering functionality in the areas that matter most to our clients in an effort to streamline the transportation process, making it easier to get kids to school safely, reliably, and on time.
As we begin a new year and students are returning to school from winter break, we’re proud to highlight our newest and most exciting feature releases, as well as features clients can expect in the coming weeks and months. These features are designed to be highly responsive to Rider and client needs, eliminate manual work, and provide deeper insight into ride management effectiveness.
Recent releases in RideIQ
The HopSkipDrive team consistently focuses on incorporating timely and impactful features aimed at elevating the efficiency of RideIQ. Let's explore a few recent enhancements designed to help optimize transportation operations.
Shared Billing
HopSkipDrive is the only platform that can respond nimbly to Riders who are highly mobile, such as youth living in foster care or experiencing homelessness. Many of these Riders attend school in a different district than where they live. Shared Billing makes it easier to meet this critical need by simplifying the process of sharing the cost of rides with another district.
Districts sometimes share Riders with more than one other district, which can cause significant manual work when splitting invoices. Shared Billing saves time by eliminating the headache of having to manually adjust billing for shared Riders. Plus, setting up Shared Billing for a Rider in RideIQ takes less than a minute to complete.
Rider Delay in Reports
Understanding patterns in Rider tardiness can help to improve on-time arrivals by pinpointing issues with things such as scheduling, location information, or pickup procedures. The new Rider Delay feature in RideIQ Reports enables quick and easy identification of Riders who are chronically late to pickup.
Using this new feature to filter based on a specific date range enables visibility into how frequently a Rider is late. Once a chronically Rider is identified, transportation teams can connect with the Rider’s caregiver to get the Rider’s transportation back on track.
Removed Rider list
When providing transportation for students, schools often have limitations on how many times a student is able to miss arranged transportation without notice before that transportation service is paused or suspended. RideIQ already allows for same-day cancellations but with the new Removed Rider list feature in RideIQ, clients now have an easy way to view and track how many rides a Rider has missed.
This feature helps to avoid charges for last-minute cancellations and no-shows. It also enables visibility into — and quick cancellation of — other rides that might be scheduled on the same day after a morning ride is missed.
User management
In RideIQ, Account Administrators can see the full view of all users who have access to their RideIQ account, allowing for better support for anyone who may need to see rides. Having full oversight of all users on an account makes general ride management via RideIQ more scalable. Account Administrators can add, deactivate, and manage users in RideIQ on the Account Settings page with just a few clicks.
Coming soon in RideIQ
Paused Rides
In recognition of the fact that some schools have guidelines for how many rides a Rider can miss before transportation may be paused, this upcoming feature will enable HopSkipDrive clients to easily pause and resume rides in RideIQ. This is especially helpful when managing rides for Riders who chronically miss their rides or are often late to pickup.
Allowing for more control and accuracy over ride scheduling, the Paused Rides feature will eliminate the need to rebuild rides by enabling rides to be paused at the Rider level in less than a minute — and then easily resumed in the future. Clients will have the ability to pause rides indefinitely or through a set date.
Late starts and early outs
This upcoming feature will enable transportation teams to make note of when there are late starts or early dismissals to the school day in a school’s RideIQ Calendar, simplifying ride scheduling and management for on-site staff — including routers. This feature will allow routers to book and manage one Ride Series for each leg of the trip instead of two or more, depending on the number of late starts and early dismissals they have.
Location pins
The process for school drop-off and pickup can sometimes be complicated and chaotic, especially for large school campuses. With many different vehicles converging in the same place all at once, it’s important for drivers to have precise location information so they understand exactly where they’re supposed to go to ensure the safe and timely drop-off and pickup of Riders.
RideIQ users will soon have the ability to adjust location pins to indicate specific pickup and drop-off locations. This new feature will streamline the ride experience by minimizing confusion in the car line, expediting the pickup and drop-off process, and helping to ensure Riders go to the right spot for drop-off.
These recently launched and upcoming features in RideIQ underscore our dedication to addressing the challenges our clients face on a daily basis; enhancing efficiency; and being proactive, innovative, and relentless about safety. We look forward to continuing to strategically implement new technology and processes in partnership with our clients to help meet the needs of Riders, schools, districts, and communities.
Interested in learning more about RideIQ and what HopSkipDrive can do to help with your unique and evolving transportation needs?
