High School Sophomore Develops Bus Tracking App for LAVTA

Target Audience: The target audience was anyone who uses the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority's (LAVTA) Wheels or Rapid services and wants to know where their bus is in real time on a user friendly smart phone app.

Strategy Objective:The strategy used was to publicize the new real time bus tracking app using our social media channels, a feature story on our website and with a press release. Our Facebook post (See here: https://www.facebook.com/wheelsbus/posts/1761644613874083:0 ) resulted in the greatest amount of engagement of any Facebook post we had ever done. The post reached 10,197 people with 1,263 engagements, 114 comments and 31 shares. The story was carried by local newspapers, with one choosing to do an extensive story on the student (see attachment). One Bay Area television station also contacted the student about the app.

Situation Challenge: During an outreach effort at Dublin (CA) High School, LAVTA staff became aware of an app that had been developed by a high school student there. The app, called "Tri-Valley Buses", uses LAVTA's "General Transit Feed Specification" (GTFS) real time data to show the precise locations of all buses on every route in the system. The student had developed the app after he had missed the bus to school on a couple of occasions. The challenge was to make the public aware of this app without a great expenditure of funds and to generate some public recognition for the student who developed the app.

Results Impact: The app has now been downloaded by over 200 Android devices and 300 iOS devices. To put those numbers in perspective, our average daily ridership is approximately 7,000. As noted in the previous response, this Facebook post received the most activity of any we have ever done. Ironically, the 16 year old's app is much more user friendly than the Trapeze based vehicle tracking app LAVTA currently has on our website. When passengers call to complain about our app being difficult to navigate, we point them to the "Tri-Valley Wheels" app.

Why Submit: This entry should win because it truly fits the definition of a shoestring outreach effort in that no direct costs were incurred and the outreach effort resulted in a significant amount of interest and publicity.