Changelog
Changelog•January 2020
Launched Spare Fleets: a new operational model for microtransit. Now multiple fleets can be connected to services, allowing for commingled services and improved vehicle utilization
Rider Notification Settings in Spare Launch now includes the ability to test.
Changelog•December 2019
Phone Call Notification feature gives administrators the ability to configure phone calls instead of SMS / Push notifications to be sent to riders
User Banning feature allows operations managers to temporarily restrict access to certain riders.
Improved non-dedicated dispatching
Improved realtime reliability monitoring on accept/reject, non-dedicated duties
Improvements to Spare Driver that show more information about current and potential next trips
Autonomous Vehicle Monitoring and Mission Control for on-demand services including an integration with Navya vehicles
Changelog•November 2019
User interface refresh for flagdown on Spare Driver V2
Default Accessibility Features and Default Rider Types now allow riders to specify their standards for trip creation
Added ability to setup Custom User Fields to track what is important to your organization
Launched Paratransit in Spare Launch
Ability for unscheduled drivers to toggle online/offline to prevent being auto-pooled with more riders
Changelog•October 2019
Visual UI refresh for Spare Driver V2
Accept/Reject for non-dedicated drivers now gives them the ability to drive unscheduled
Improved how admins set price on fare passes in the Admin Portal
Ridership reports now include information about fare passes
Changelog•September 2019
Added ability to restrict some services from being show in the rider app
Ability to shared Time Travel URL with a specific time interval
Ability to see fare calculation and discounts applied inside of driver application
Introducing Spare Driver V2: a completely redesigned driver experience with built-in turn-by-turn navigation
Spare Mobile Ticketing system launched to enable monthly and discount passes
Changelog•August 2019
Added ability to disable flag downs based on configuration
Spare Engine optimization sliders released
Realtime metrics for driver lateness
Feature preventing duplicate trips to be allowed to be scheduled at the same time.
Introducing Predicted Demand V2. Now vehicles can be proactively dispatched to pickup locations based on predicted hotspots.
Changelog•July 2019
Release several traffic system improvements so that Spare Engine is better at calculating ETAs.
Added built-in turn-by-turn navigation functionality to Spare Driver.
Added new Rider Experience tab to Spare Analyze to better track the experience that riders are having when using the system.
Modified all routing geographies to have proper side-of-road routing by default.
Improved stop ordering and pagination logic in Driver App for Flag Down functionality.
Changelog•June 2019
Fixed a bug where slots can sometimes be rendered out of order.
Made it easier to see vehicle lateness and other issues in the LiveMap.
Added metrics that measure the offset between scheduled and completed times of rider pickup/dropoff.
Improved rider experience when system is running busy.
Add the ability to configure service level matching parameters for balancing rider experience & system efficiency.
Changelog•May 2019
National Transportation Database (NTD) Reporting export capability
ed Improved service creation UI by making it easier to navigate between stops
Ability to see the rider comment in ridership exports.
Changelog•April 2019
New matching constraint that prevents last minute driver itinerary changes before upcoming pickup and dropoff slots.
Release new Duty Pause/Resume Matching feature. This can be used in event of complications in operation to stop matching new requests to a duty temporarily.
Improved UI to better reflect when operations are loading.
Performance improvements on Duty Scheduling for customers with a large vehicle fleet.
Changelog•March 2019
New on-boarding experience for riders before they book their first trip to explain how the system works.
New side-of-road stopping restrictions to improve routing quality and rider experience. System is now always navigate to correct side of the road for select geographies.
New matching restrictions that prevent returning to existing pickup point. This is designed to improve rider psychology
Added pickup radius drawn around user's requested location for Optimized Stops system to give users an indication of possible walking distance.
Added Fare payment information from Spare Pay so that driver can know how much fare is to be collected.
Added new Time Rules that can be re-used to set service hours by Zone. Previously services hours had to be set by Service so the configuration allows for more flexibility in the service definition
Add new network error tracking to better inform users something may be wrong with their internet connection.
Greatly improved the performance of the Driver App experience to provide all drivers a more pleasant driving experience.
Changelog•February 2019
Released a new navigation system called Spare Nav. This is full replacement for Waze and can now be downloaded for the App Store and used the same way as Waze navigation. Spare Nav is much better integrated into Spare Platform and we generally recommend customers switch over.
Added ability to search Japanese text to the Admin Panel.
Improved reporting to support the imperial system of measurement (miles) for customers in United States.
Many performance improvements to Live Map feature.
Ability to specify allowed Rider Types for each Service. Riders can self-select the their own rider type in the Rider App such as Child,Disabled,etc and different pricing may be applied.
Ability to add and use Nimoca payment methods using Spare Pay
New capability to restrict certain Zones to only specific Groups
d Renamed Employers to Groups to improve clarity.
Added a new ETA webhook for listening for updates on per-duty.
Changed how payment and flexibility rules are set so now they can be applied per-service rather than per-organization.
Riders can now select their payment method when making a trip rather than only using the default.
Added new Promos feature, which allows system operator to give riders various discounts through promo codes.
Added zones to Time Travel to help visualize vehicle travel.
Japanese localization for API messages.
Added support for JPY(¥) payments using Spare Pay.
Riders can now receive reminders via push notification instead of SMS.
Changelog•January 2019
Zones can now utilize the new Optimized Stops Algorithm to improve overall system performance (decrease driving distance, increase pooling)
Added the ability to export driver reports
Administrators of systems can now send localized announcements to riders to inform them of service changes or other alerts
Rider app now includes a brand new user flow for rating your trip after you can completed it with ability to leave default comments
Drivers can now pickup riders when they walk up to the vehicle by performing a flag down.
Added ability to filter lists of users by phone number.
Added a new Scheduler role that allows for duty management.
Added a new request status: serviceDisruption, used when a request is affected by a cancelled duty or other disruption of service.
Cancelling duties will now trigger rematching of existing riders matched to those duties
Added a ability to view / filter / export system wide payment methods
Redesigned duties page allowing for easier creation and visualization of duties.
Changelog•December 2018
Added ability to create duties without start or end locations.
Organizations can now unsubscribe from SMS notifications.
Changelog•November 2018
Introduced a new arriving request status update
Added ability to specify service animal as an accessibility feature
Added ability to specify notes as part of a request cancellation
Added ability to import Shapefiles when designing services
Responses from vehicle location webhooks were changed to include vehicle IDs and other information.
Added search by stops or a user's favorite location in request creation.
Analytics wait time metric has been improved using more accurate data.
Added time rule overrides in Service to replace exclusion dates. This allows for setting special service hours on specific dates.
Added ability to send automatic SMS notifications when a driver is arriving to pick up a rider.
Added ability to create users directly from the request creation screen.
Changelog•October 2018
Administrative interface has undergone a UI redesign to make navigation simpler and more intuitive.
Ability for Spare Open API developers to register webhooks for important events such as vehicle location changes and request status updates.
We have changed fundamentally how Services work and added a new notion of Zones. This increases flexibility of the types of services that can be operated on Spare Platform.
Changelog•September 2018
The driver user experience has been refreshed to focus on the next stop and now provides feedback on the driver's on-time performance.
Improved GDPR Compliance - You can now enable automatic deletion of user data after a period of inactivity.
Ability to configure custom phone numbers and Alpha Numeric Sender IDs on a per organization level.
Changelog•August 2018
Spare Engine was upgraded with improved traffic-aware routing and matching capabilities.
Ability to define accessibility features during request booking process. Available accessibility features can be defined during vehicle and service creation.
New improvements to reporting now allow administrators to track vehicle travel distance and passenger travel distance.
Ability to subscribe to important email or admin panel notifications about your service.
Reporting of ridership data now shows how many requests were considered as No Shows.
Added the ability to easily filter Requests by their cancellation reason.
Added a new API endpoint (GET /estimates/nextAvailable) for fetching an estimate for the next available ride.
Changelog•July 2018
Added optional parameter createdInterface as input when creating a Request or an Estimate so that API consumers can specify which booking interface they are using. This allows for reporting on the booking method used.
Added endpoints for fetching results of Spare Realize simulations.
Added Time Travel feature to give operators the ability to travel back into the past and see what the driver of the vehicle was doing.
Changelog•June 2018
The driver app is now localized in a number of different languages, including Japanese and Norwegian.
Booking agents can now have restricted, view only booking agent permissions.
We've added timezone override to your profile so you can easily switch to the timezone of your service across all of Spare Platform.
Changelog•May 2018
We've introduced many improvements to service zone draw tools. You can now edit zones after they are created and undo redo changes when drawing.
We've updated our reporting interface to with additional KPIs and graphs that are easier to understand.
Changelog•April 2018
We've added deep linking in the rider app. Now external apps can easily deep link into the estimates screen to quickly make a booking.
Request booking has received an complete overhaul. There is now a new interface to quickly and easily book trips on behalf of other people.