When Summer 2026 Mega-Event matches came to Boston Stadium in Foxborough, GATRA built a regional shuttle network to get fans there and back, pulling from transit hubs across Southeastern Massachusetts over seven match days.

That wasn't a simple task. The stadium sat in a remote pocket of Foxborough, served by only a handful of route corridors. Several matches landed on weekday evenings too, right in the middle of peak commuter traffic on those same roads. GATRA needed to move thousands of fans efficiently. And it had to do that without disrupting the regular transit service that communities across the region rely on every day.

To pull it off, GATRA brought partner regional transit agencies and contracted providers together under one roof, coordinating 14 vehicles across multiple routes on match days.

Multiple agencies, mixed fleets, and limited connectivity

Coordinating a fleet at this scale meant working around fragmented tools and old-school radio dispatch. Each partner agency ran its own system, and any fix had to work on top of that existing infrastructure, not replace it.

In the field, radios dropped out and internet connectivity was spotty near the stadium. That made real-time contact with drivers one of the biggest gaps in the operation.

Multiple partner agencies needed to work together without anyone tearing out their existing systems. Standing up temporary, high-volume routes took heavy manual effort. Radio dispatch couldn't reliably reach drivers in the low-connectivity zones near the stadium. And running event shuttles alongside everyday service meant precise coordination to avoid conflicts with GATRA's regular routes.

GATRA needed something that could sit on top of what agencies already had and pull the whole fleet into one view. It also needed to keep dispatchers connected to every driver in the field and flex in real time as conditions changed from match to match.

“We would have everybody on one platform that we could then control, and that was really important because from an operations standpoint, we needed to know where the buses were at any given time, and we couldn't be managing three or four different systems. Spare gives us a GPS. It gives us a schedule to provide to the operators.”
- Mary Ellen DeFrias, Administrator and CEO of GATRA 

Spare Fixed Route for GATRA's shuttles

GATRA implemented Spare's Fixed Route to manage their mega-event shuttle network. This gave the team fast deployment of temporary fixed routes and one operational view across the entire blended fleet. And it did that without touching any partner agency's existing systems.

Paired with the Spare Engine, Fixed Route gave GATRA:

• One unified platform. GATRA configured routes, managed schedules, and organized blocks across every partner agency in a single system.
• Real-time visibility. The team tracked every vehicle and monitored the full multi-agency fleet on one live map.
• A tablet-based driver app. Dispatchers deployed it fast without permanent hardware and gave drivers clear duty assignments.
• Push-to-talk communication. Dispatchers reached drivers instantly over data, bypassing radio dead zones and staying connected to the field at all times.
• Flexible routing. The team adjusted geofences, routes, and staging areas in real time as match-day conditions changed, then carried those improvements into the next game.

“It gives us the push-to-talk option through the app, and then it also gives us the ability to count passengers on the bus real-time. Our biggest game, we moved over 1,100 people. This is a huge accomplishment, and I really could not do this without Spare and with the other RTAs.” - Mary Ellen DeFrias, Administrator and CEO of GATRA 

What success looked like

GATRA cut the time it took to configure temporary routes, gained real-time visibility across its blended fleet, and kept drivers reachable no matter the radio coverage. Regular transit service across GATRA's member communities ran without any interruptions throughout the matches. 

The team could also respond to changing conditions mid-match and carry those fixes into the next game.

"We were coordinating buses from multiple agencies across a complex regional operation. Having a single live view of every vehicle and the ability to reach any driver instantly meant we could make confident decisions in real time, even when conditions changed.” - Mary Ellen DeFrias, Administrator and CEO of GATRA 

Cross-agency collaboration, on short notice

This deployment showed that connecting multiple operator systems doesn't require replacing existing infrastructure or months of integration work. Spare gave GATRA a way to bring partner agencies together fast, coordinate a blended fleet under one view, and keep communications reliable from day one. Standing up cross-agency collaboration at speed is what GATRA and its partners can now carry forward.

The story doesn't end here! See how GATRA used Spare fixed route on match days. 

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