Spare’s Spring 2025 product vision: Smarter tools for real-world transit challenges
Transit teams are being stretched from every angle.
More trips, more complexity, more pressure—from riders, leadership, and the reality of day-to-day ops. All while working with fewer drivers and tighter budgets.
We know those pressures aren’t going away. That’s why everything we shared in our Spring 2025 Keynote focuses on a single goal: helping your team stay efficient, nimble, and rider-focused—without burning out.
No time to watch the full keynote? We’ve got you. Here’s everything you need to know—what’s new, what’s next, and why it matters.
🚦 Note: From real-time routing to multimodal trip planning, several of these tools—including Spare One—are already live and making an impact. But others are rolling out soon. We’ve marked each one clearly so you can plan accordingly.
Solving today’s transit challenges with smarter software
We focused on three core areas:
- Real-time support for operations teams
- Easier, faster planning with data
- A unified experience across services and tools
Let’s break it down.
Transit scheduling and dispatch tools that keep you in control—even when the day goes off-script
Spare Engine · Driver Investigation for Dispatchers (Coming soon) · Google Live Traffic (Coming soon)
Operations teams need more than static schedules and guesswork. These tools help your dispatchers and drivers respond in real time, without scrambling:
- Spare Engine dynamically optimizes trips throughout the day, including new capabilities like Recurring Trip Groups. Now, schedulers can batch repeat rides (like dialysis trips or to and from group homes) and trust the system to group them efficiently—no more manual re-entry every week. We heard from agencies how painful this was. Now it’s a few clicks.
- Driver Investigation for dispatchers includes a rebuilt Live Map that brings critical issues—like late pull-outs or prolonged stops—right to the surface. Think of it as mission control for your daily ops, helping your team spot and address service gaps before they snowball.
- Google Live Traffic will soon integrate directly into Spare, bringing live traffic data into the Driver App and routing engine. Your drivers were already using Google Maps. We’re just making it official.
Why it matters: Fewer delays. Fewer missed trips. More time to focus on what actually needs your attention.
Transit data and planning tools for faster, better decisions
Spare Analytics (Coming soon)
Data is only helpful if your team can actually use it. These features are designed to make insights more accessible, without needing a background in SQL or daily help from IT:
- Spare Analytics now includes dashboards that highlight performance trends and KPIs at a glance—so analysts and operational managers can see what’s working (and what’s not) right away.
- Query Builder lets you slice and dice data without exporting to Excel. Just filter, run, and share. A list of default reports in the Reports List lets power users create and visualize only the data they need. In a sea of transit data, analysts can get the immediate, actionable insights you need.
Why it matters: Quicker decisions, less time hunting for answers, and more alignment across teams.
Multimodal trip planning and rider support in one platform
Spare One · Spare Resolve · Spare AI (Coming soon)
Multimodal and demand-responsive services are the future—but only if they’re manageable. This next set of updates helps agencies bring it all together:
- Spare One supports seamless multimodal trip planning, showing riders the best way to get where they need to go, even if it means transferring between services. In Minneapolis, a rider using Spare One planned their trip from paratransit to light rail—all in one app.
- Spare Resolve (Coming soon) simplifies how your team handles complaints and service requests. It pulls in all the rider info and trip context you need, so you can respond quickly and with empathy. And yes—there’s a built-in audit trail for when the FTA comes knocking.
- Spare AI (Coming soon) will bring more automation to support and planning—surfacing smart answers and saving time on repetitive tasks. It includes two major components:
- Meet Scout: your AI assistant for faster answers and fewer blockers. Scout is a conversational assistant built into the Spare platform. It helps staff:
- Generate reports
- Investigate rider complaints
- Summarize trip history
- Understand platform features
- Proactively flag issues and recommend (or take) next steps—like alerting dispatch or pre-filling a driver message
- Where it shows up:
- Spare Analytics: Helps build reports faster
- Spare Operations: Summarizes alerts and suggests actions
- Spare Resolve: Auto-triages complaints and recommends responses
- Spare Analytics: Helps build reports faster
- AI Agents for agency workflows
Workflow-level automation designed to simplify planning and support tasks—like pre-drafting communications, pulling data context, or recommending adjustments based on trends. These agents will work behind the scenes to reduce repetitive tasks and guide decision-making at scale.
- Meet Scout: your AI assistant for faster answers and fewer blockers. Scout is a conversational assistant built into the Spare platform. It helps staff:
Why it matters: Better experiences for riders and staff. More clarity, fewer systems, and a lot less friction.
Always-on support for a better rider experience
AI Chat · Rider Hub · Eligibility Representatives
Last year, we launched AI Voice—our first AI agent for rider support It answers rider calls with natural, human-like conversation. Riders can book trips, check ETAs, and get service updates without waiting for a live agent. It even helped Auburn Transit cut call volume by over 70%.
Now, we’re expanding that capability to a new channel with AI Chat.
These tools help riders manage trips and eligibility on their own terms:
- AI Chat offers that same convenience via SMS—great for riders who prefer messaging over phone calls. It supports over 50 languages, so you can serve a broader community without extra staff.
- Rider Hub and Eligibility Representatives simplify paratransit eligibility from day one. Riders (or their caregivers) can apply, track their status, and review updates—all from one place. The Rider Hub even extends to feedback and complaints, unifying every incident or positive remark in the customer journey in one place. For agencies, that means fewer calls, fewer delays, and better first impressions.
Why it matters: Faster answers for riders. Less strain on support teams. A smoother experience from start to finish.
👀 What’s coming next on the Spare platform (and what’s already rolling out)
Here’s what’s currently in rollout or active development:
- Google Live Traffic (Coming soon): Real-time routing updates for drivers
- Driver Investigation for Dispatchers (Coming soon): Easier review of live and past operator activity
- Spare Analytics 2.0 (Coming soon): Dashboards, report list, and new report builder
And here’s what’s in the future pipeline:
- Spare AI: AI-powered platform for planning and support, which will include:
- Scout: A conversational assistant embedded across Spare to help staff investigate complaints, summarize trip history, and generate reports
TL;DR: One transit software platform. Fewer systems. More control.
A single platform where everything works together—operations, planning, and support.
Less manual work. More informed decisions.
Tools that grow with your agency, whether you’re rural, urban, or somewhere in between.
We’re not building shiny features for a demo. We’re solving for the stuff that slows you down—late trips, staffing gaps, tight budgets, and disconnected systems.
If that sounds familiar, you’re exactly who we’re building for.
Explore more
Want to dig into specific topics from the keynote?
Or watch the full replay of Spare’s 2025 Spring Product Keynote.
Let’s keep the conversation going
We’d love your feedback on everything we shared in the keynote. Reach out to your Partner Success Manager—we're always happy to chat!
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