The Montgomery County Department of Transportation’s (MCDOT) Ride On Trip Planner has reached its one-year anniversary since its launch in summer 2023. The agency has seen more than 1 million public transit trips planned with the app, as it continues to make planning public transportation easier and more convenient for transit riders.
Ride On Trip Planner allows for trip planning across multiple modes, including Montgomery County Ride On buses, Metrorail and Metrobuses, electric scooters and bikeshare. Additionally, the app gives live reports on wait times and ridership levels for Ride On buses through a crowdsourcing information feature.
"We are building out a transportation network that incorporates faster, more frequent bus service, including express bus lines. Making our public transit system easy to navigate will encourage ridership," said Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich. "Public transit is good for the environment and it is good for health. It eliminates the need to find parking and deal with traffic congestion. We’ve begun adding dedicated lanes and traffic light priority, which helps make the ride more efficient."
Through the app, residents can compare routes, estimated travel times and cost comparisons for suggested routes. It also provides features to guide riders along their chosen route, including “first mile, last mile” directions to a selected bus stop and sending push notifications to their mobile device when it is time to exit the bus.
The app was created as a pilot project in partnership with Moovit, a mobility and journey application provider. Riders can download the app from the Google Play or Apple app store. A web-based version of the app also is available.
"We have seen a steady increase in ridership on Ride On buses and are currently at 89 percent of pre-pandemic ridership levels," said MCDOT Director Chris Conklin. "Last month, we saw a 27 percent increase over last year and carried an average of 67,000 riders a day during weekdays. We are working to revolutionize public transit in Montgomery County through faster, more frequent bus service.”
MCDOT recently completed a full-scale reassessment of the Ride On transit network. Ride On Reimagined proposes updated routes and bus services to improve and upgrade the county’s transit system with more frequent and reliable service, better cross-county connections and more flexible service.
