Extreme weather has a way of exposing cracks in even the best-run operations. A normal service day can quickly turn into a flood of cancellations, rider calls, and last-minute decisions. When that happens, transit agencies rely on their technology as much as their people.

With severe weather becoming more common, these moments are no longer edge cases. We’ve heard directly from operators about how their systems performed under pressure, and what they need to stay reliable when conditions are anything but.

Real performance under pressure

Mike Hulak, COO for Paratransit at the MBTA, said something after Winter Storm Fern that stuck with us. During his team's review of operations, he told them: "I've never seen this good of performance during a storm for OTP and trip rematching, the engine really delivers on what they sell."

That’s Spare Engine working as it should. When the weather disrupts your planned routes, the system keeps running. It rematches trips, adjusts schedules, and finds the best routes while you handle other urgent issues.

The same technology that manages snow and ice also helps you prioritize trips during a heat wave or handle evacuations when wildfire smoke appears.

Communication can't wait for perfect conditions

A rider at CapMetro's Access Committee meeting recently mentioned a specific issue. They appreciated how well the agency communicated during the ice storm. How'd they do it? Bulk messages through Spare.

When a flash flood warning appears or air quality drops, your riders need updates right away. Spare’s bulk messaging sends out information in minutes. You don’t have to search spreadsheets or copy phone numbers, and you know everyone gets the message.

Write your message once, send it to whoever needs it. Everyone on a route, everyone with a trip in the next few hours, everyone booked for tomorrow. Done.

Flexibility when plans fall apart

Owen Albrecht, Paratransit Manager for the City of Alexandria faced a challenge during a recent snowstorm. At 3 PM on a Friday, with snow falling, he needed to get city employees from nearby hotels to the office.

Normally, this would take lots of phone calls and manual scheduling. But by that afternoon, they were able to have an emergency service running. Spare managed the routing, assigned drivers, and sent notifications. What usually takes days was done in hours.

That’s what Spare Engine offers. Hurricane evacuations, heat emergency service changes, and sudden reroutes when roads flood or fires close streets, all managed on the same platform.

The voice component you didn't know you needed

People still call during bad weather. They want to know if their ride is coming, if their driver is late, or if you’ve cancelled service.

Spare’s AI Voice answers those calls so your dispatchers don’t have to. It handles common questions, gives real-time updates, and connects to a person when needed. When call volume spikes and your team is busy, that makes a big difference.

Whether it’s a tornado warning or hurricane prep, your riders get answers right away instead of a busy signal.

When things go wrong

Severe weather causes problems. Vehicles overheat, roads flood and close without warning, and drivers can’t get in. It happens.

Spare Resolve gives you one place to see and fix everything. Issues are logged, someone is assigned, and you track it until it’s done. Nothing gets lost in a notebook or buried in a text thread.

When you're managing an emergency, you need everything at your fingertips. Not spread across sticky notes and radio calls.

One platform for everything that matters

When severe weather hits, the last thing you need is to jump between different systems to manage your response. Spare One brings your entire operation together—fixed route, paratransit, and on-demand service—all in one place.

Whether you're rerouting buses around flooded streets, managing paratransit pickups during an ice storm, or coordinating with taxi and TNC providers to handle overflow demand, you're working from the same platform your team uses every day. No switching logins, no separate dashboards, no confusion about where information lives.

This unified approach means dispatchers can see the complete picture across all service types, planners can adjust schedules and routes from one screen, and operations managers can track performance without reconciling data from multiple vendors. When minutes matter and conditions are changing fast, having everything in one system makes all the difference.

What this means

Technology can’t stop a hurricane or cool down a heat wave. But it can make the difference between handling severe weather and falling apart.

The operators we talk to aren't just surviving these events, they're thriving. They show us data proving their performance improved even when the weather got worse. They heard from riders who felt well cared for and that emergency services were set up quickly.

That’s possible when your systems are built for the hardest days, not just the easy ones.

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