Transportation Department Pilots Multimodal Trip Planner for Rural Communities, Minnesota, 2023

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has launched a multimodal trip planner for southern and western Minnesota communities. Specifically, residents and visitors can use the Transit App to discover transit and shared mobility services across fifteen mobility providers, including:

1. Brown County Heartland Express;
2. Central Community Transit;
3. Jefferson Lines;
4. Land to Air;
5. Morris Transit;
6. Mankato Transit System;
7. Minnesota River Valley Transit;
8. Prairie Five RIDES;
9. Rochester Public Transit;
10. Rolling Hills Transit;
11. SMART;
12. The Otter Express;
13. Tri-CAP;
14. TRUE Transit; and
15. UCAP Community Transit

Through the Transit App, customers can purchase tickets for mobility services at some of the above agencies, furthering MnDOT’s effort to create a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) experience for shared mobility users across southern and western Minnesota. MnDOT has funded the development of its trip planning platform with Transit with a $628,000 Accelerating Innovative Mobility (AIM) grant and a $450,000 COVID-19 Research Demonstration grant, both from the Federal Transit Administration. Many of the above agencies, which serve rural communities, cannot offer real-time information to their customers through apps and feeds. Their participation in this pilot can help improve how these agencies interact with their users while facilitating trips across different providers. This pilot can serve as a model to other states, regional, and local agencies looking to improve how trip information is shared across larger service areas.

Last updated May 15, 2023