James Day meets with RATP Dev UK Business Development Director, Coralie Triadou, to discuss Slide, an example of a commercial demand-responsive transport service.
Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) is something traditionally seen from the community transport sector in the form of dial-a-ride – a subsidised service operated by volunteers which primarily works to prevent social isolation.
However, Slide is an example of a commercial bus operator establishing an innovative and transformative option for the industry. The service, which is operated by RATP Dev in Bristol, instead seeks to serve the commuter market first and foremost, and has seen a great deal of success since it was first launched in 2016.
The service was set up by Coralie Triadou, RATP Dev’s Business Development Director for the UK. She has held the role since April 2015 after initially joining RATP Dev in June 2012. I was able to meet with her to find out more.
Choosing the right location
The idea of a more personalised mode of transport had been considered by the RATP Dev team for some time, but the company decided to bring something to market about two years ago. It decided the UK was a good place to do that, and Bristol was the ideal city.
Smartphones were identified as something which the company wanted to be a key part of the service’s delivery, something Coralie described as truly fascinating technology which can offer a more personalised, dynamic service than mass transit. [wlm_nonmember][…]
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“Mass transit is of course needed and useful, but a service which carries over a million passengers a day cannot be as personal,” Coralie said.
RATP identified Bristol as an ideal place for the Slide trial because it is known to be one of the most congested cities in the UK.
“There is too much car use in the city,” Coralie explained. “We also felt the transport provision there is not as complete as it could be. We felt we would not add as much to a city where transport provision is already great.
“We’re based in a co-working space called Desklodge, which is also where we found our first customers. Bristol is a very innovative city, and we needed such a location to get early adopters even though the service is not mainstream yet. That’s easier in a city where people are used to it and sometimes even working in upstart companies themselves.
“We also have a bus operation between Bath and Bristol – Bath Bus Company. This means Bristol is close to home for us.”
Getting started
Slide Bristol was soft launched in mid-July 2016, with a public launch at the end of the month. The service was available to anyone willing to download the app – there was never a restricted set of users.
“It took off quite well,” Coralie said. “We increased the number of vehicles in January 2017 and we’re now running with 13 vehicles, having launched with six.
“Each vehicle has eight passenger seats. We decided to go to market quickly, and since we didn’t know for sure what the market would need, we wanted to be able to change the vehicles quickly in response to passenger feedback. However, we didn’t have any negative feedback about the vehicles.
“We chose to operate under a private hire licence. It’s more flexible than the current bus legislative framework. We could have used a flexible bus registration, but you still need to register 56 days in advance. We may think about moving to larger vehicles at a later point, and take it from there.”
The VW Transporter was the vehicle of choice, primarily because it was available at the time of launch on short-notice flexible contracts, allowing changes to be made quickly and easily.
“The service was a bit different to what we would do on a more traditional bus operation, where things are fixed in advance and more predictable,” Coralie said.
“We have been operating Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) for some time in France, but these are usually subsidised services on the outskirts of medium-sized cities. They are more traditional DRT, similar to Dial-a-Ride in the UK.
“Slide is a different market from these, and different to traditional bus services. We really wanted to see what kind of feedback we would have from people.”
A commuter service
Currently, Slide is designed as a commuter service, and as such only operates during commuting hours – 0645 to 0945hrs in the morning, and 1530 to 1930hrs in evening, Monday to Friday. The vehicles are specified with WiFi and USB charging points to help commuters make the most of their journeys.
“We mainly have professionals as our passengers, though we do have passengers from all age groups” Coralie said.
“Anyone with a smartphone who is happy to leave their credit card details in the app is able to use the service.”
Slide has extended hours for specific circumstances in the past. In 2017 in the lead up to Christmas, hours were extended to allow passengers to use the service to get to Christmas parties. The operator sometimes has discussions with customers about extra operating hours.
“Something we really like about the Slide operation is we can change things very quickly,” Coralie explained. “For example, we were initially beginning our commuter service in the evening at around 1630hrs.
“Then we saw that a lot of people were asking for services between 1530 and 1600hrs, which we didn’t expect. However, many people get to the office at 0700hrs in the morning and will leave about 1530hrs. So we adjusted the service.
“We can look at data for when people request rides, and the discussions we have with passengers, and take all of this into account to make a more useful service for them. That’s much easier for us to do with Slide’s DRT setup than a more traditional service.
“We don’t very often get requests for services far outside of the usual operating hours, and it is advertised as a commuter service, but people can of course use it for any reason they like. We had a funny request when we started – someone asked to travel with us at 0900hrs, but said ‘I’m not going to work, is that okay?”
The Slide app
With the Slide app, users state whether they would like to travel as soon as possible, or can set a leave by or arrive by time.
Addresses and journeys can be registered in the app, so users can quickly arrange travel between their home and place of work.
“People can either book in advance or a few minutes before the trip,” Coralie explained. “It gives people flexibility and allows for different users.
“For example a very regular user will book far in advance to make sure they get to work by 0900hrs. The more ad-hoc passenger might decide half an hour before based on the weather or whether they feel like driving. We want to keep that flexibility and these options for the passenger.”
Once the user has identified the journey they want to take, the app will then suggest several trips, including the walk distance and time to and from pick-up and drop-off points, along with a map.
“We want to group people,” Coralie continued. “We don’t want to be a taxi, but a bus. If we were to take people door-to-door, it would be much more difficult for us to group people.
“We ask passengers to walk as if they are walking to a bus stop, and usually they will not need to walk for more than five minutes.”
Once the ride has been chosen and confirmed, the app continues to payment, where the customer can either pay directly with a card or use previously purchased credit. Codes can also be applied, which is how a passenger with a monthly pass will pay for their travel.
Once confirmed, the app displays the name of the driver and the licence plate of the vehicle. The customer is also given the ability to call the driver up to 30 mins before trip.
An estimated time of pickup is provided, which may vary slightly depending on traffic. Tracking is also included in the app, displaying where the vehicle is on a map.
Price ranges from £4-£7 one way, irrespective of how many people are travelling. This figure is always distance based, rather than time based.
“We want people to know how much they are going to pay when they book,” Coralie explained. “We don’t think that it is acceptable for a commuter service to have price variance between days.”
Drivers get top marks
Slide has received lots of positive feedback for its drivers. RATP Dev employs 20 drivers for its Slide programme, and has taken great care to make their working day as easy as possible for them.
“That’s something we know from traditional DRT, where the interaction is different and passengers are more aware of the importance of the driver, but we were still not expecting so much positive feedback,” Coralie enthused.
“People spontaneously comment when they’re happy, which I think is really nice. We always pass on their feedback to the drivers. It feels like a little community in a way.
“We post driver birthdays on social media, giving passengers chance to wish them happy birthday. We do lots of little things like that to make people feel like they are part of a group.”
Since Slide’s drivers work two three-hour split shifts, RATP Dev felt that it would be unfair to expect them to have 30 minutes of travel to and from a depot twice a day. Because of this, they have instead opted to allow drivers to keep the vehicles at their homes.
“We thought it would be easier for everyone that way,” Coralie said. “We ask whether they deem it safe to park there, and if not an alternative arrangement is made.”
“Vehicles are inspected on a weekly basis by another member of staff. When they’re handed over to a different driver there is a very clear checklist to ensure everything is there. A maintenance deal has been done with the leasing company.
“It’s a lighter process than you would have with a bus. You don’t have the same door issues, for example, but there is nonetheless still a process for them to go through.”
The driver-friendly setup also means Slide does not require a depot, and only has some office space in the city. Drivers come to the office to meet with management, get their payslip and other general administrative things, but no central stabling facilities are required.
Playful marketing
It was clear that marketing the service is something the RATP Dev team is enjoying immensely. Throughout the year to mark just about every occasion, there is some form of unusual marketing scheme ongoing. Slide also offers £15 of free credit for first time users to persuade new passengers to give it a try.
“During Halloween, we sometimes have a pumpkin hidden on a vehicle which people have to find, we’ve had food baskets and we’ve had a double-layered advent calendar livery on each minibus which the first passenger to board every day gets to peel away before being given a chocolate bar. Our passengers loved it.
“We’ve also had cupcakes and chocolate deliveries for loved ones on Valentine’s Day, and daffodil deliveries in April.
“We’ve tried to approach passengers in a less usual way. Given it is such a personal service with smaller vehicles, it is much easier to do that. In a normal mainstream operation it would be more difficult and we can’t go as far.
“It’s only really in our sightseeing operations that we can be as playful as we can with Slide.”
It’s fair to say that this playful marketing is likely to have helped the Slide operation to expand so rapidly. It also gives the operator a friendly face, which may well be a contributing factor to the willingness of Slide’s customer base to make specific requests.
“We’ve raised a lot of awareness in Bristol quite quickly,” Coralie said. “Because of the size of city and having vehicles driving around throughout commuter hours, we are very visible.
“Now we can see that people know us and the awareness has grown much more, and as a result we are seeing different types of requests in terms of how to use Slide, which is shaping the service.
“It is not set in stone. We may change the way we operate it in the coming months.”
Out of hours
Though Slide continues to be marketed as a commuter service, the operator has carried out some ad hoc work as well.
“We’ve already had people asking us informally for ad hoc services outside of regular hours,” Coralie said. “We have provided the travel where there was enough interest, such as for Christmas parties and events such as business conferences.
“We have also investigated providing travel for people on night shifts, but we could not come up with something suitable for everyone. We would also need to find another driver for it.
“If we see there is a demand for different types of services it is something we can do.”
Cyclists welcome
Slide is a cycle-friendly service, willing and able to carry bicycles should a cyclist travel to work and not wish to cycle in return, perhaps due to fatigue or poor weather.
“It’s something we would never have thought of offering, but we had a request from someone asking if they could take their bike,” Coralie explained. “We said of course you can, because the vehicles have big boots. Obviously if you had six at a time it would be difficult.”
Coralie said that while the service is happy to carry bicycles, an option for this is not displayed on the app: “We’re trying to keep the app as light as possible and not include options unless needed. If it’s something that’s just a few ad hoc requests, we deal with it via email.
“If we see it becomes mainstream, we’ll add it to the app. If you overcomplicate the app for something that is barely used, it’s not a good use of the system.
“We’ve tried to strike a good balance between automatic functions in the app and customer service functions outside of it. Given the number of requests we have it is easier to do it that way.”
An agile operation
Coralie said that since the service was launched, Slide has seen very strong growth, with the number of monthly trip rates reaching as high as 30% month-on-month. However, this success was far from certain, and the operation was set up carefully to allow it to be adapted quickly to a business model that works.
“With Slide, we’re trying to be very agile and fast using some start-up business techniques,” Coralie said. “With our innovation department in Paris, we are working more and more with start-
up companies.
“The atmosphere of Slide is much closer to that of a startup than a classic bus operation, even though it belongs to a wider group. It shows big companies can do things like this and still be flexible and agile.
“It’s a way of developing a project which we think is really interesting.”
Coralie said the success of Slide has seen its market turn more competitive: “When we launched in July 2016 we were the first service of this kind in the UK. Since then, we have seen many operators launching or talking about launching similar services across the UK. It is getting to be a very busy space.
“We’re looking at other locations, both in the UK and abroad, but getting it right in Bristol was a priority.”
About RATP Dev
RATP Dev operates and maintains urban and intercity transportation systems on four continents and is part of RATP group, the world’s fifth largest transport company. www.ratpdev.com
