Västtrafik gains efficiencies and data-driven decision-making with Remix

About Västtrafik

Västtrafik is responsible for public transport for a region of western Sweden. Every day, over 400,000 customers choose to travel on their buses, trains, trams, and boats. By developing and offering sustainable travel and efficient services, they want to be the obvious choice when people travel. In this way, Västtrafik contributes to “the good life” in Västra Götaland by increasing the attractiveness and competitiveness of the region for both residents and businesses.

Challenge

Västtrafik needed a solution to remove time-consuming, manual steps to access data and information, improve the quality of data analysis, and enable more informed decision making.

Solution

Västtrafik partnered with Remix to gain process efficiencies, increase collaboration and trust with municipalities, and ultimately enable more data-driven outcomes for their communities.  

Results

• Saved time accessing statistics: ~5 days down to ~10 minutes
• Improved quality of data analysis
• Sped up stakeholder review of transit lines from a couple of months down to a couple of minutes
• Enabled data-driven decision making and gained the trust of municipal stakeholders

Tell us about the initial challenges you faced with transit planning.

We needed a program that could easily be used by novices and experienced planners alike. The programs we had were difficult to use and therefore not many people used them. We quickly saw a need for a solution that would make it easier to talk about how planning affects the way we travel and vice versa. 

We also experienced long cycle times to get the information we needed. For example, to access statistics we needed to contact a specific department, which took approximately five days, and this time spent trying to gain access to the data cut deeply into our time to analyze the data and discuss it with partners. The hassle and delays with the old process resulted in more decisions made by gut instinct and previous experience than based on the latest data. These deficiencies prompted us to seek a new way forward.

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How have you been able to address your pain points with Remix?

We have gained process efficiencies and increased the quality of our work. With Remix, we have:

• Saved time accessing statistics: A manual process that used to take about five business days to request and receive stats from a specific department now takes about ten minutes to two hours (depending on the level of complexity) to access ourselves in Remix. We no longer are dependent on another department, and those teams can now also focus on more value-added tasks. 
• Improved quality of data analysis: As a result of being able to quickly self-serve with data in Remix, we are able to spend more time on valuable data analysis, making conversations richer and decision-making stronger.
• Reduced the time it takes to show a line: Showing a line to our municipal partners used to be time-consuming because we would have to talk to multiple parts of our organization to get that information, creating a long chain of people involved. What used to take up to a month now takes less than an hour in Remix. 
• Saved time accessing route information: If an agency wants more service, we now can use Remix to provide an estimate. Before we had Remix, it would take several weeks up to a month to get that information. Now with Remix, it takes minutes. 
• Enabled data-driven decision making: Before Remix, there was more decision-making based on gut feeling and prior experience. Now that it’s easier for a larger number of people to look things up in Remix- whether that is for simple or complex analysis- we are able to make smarter, more informed decisions, reducing risk in our decision-making process. This also democratizes access to important data analysis. 
• Increased collaboration: Using Remix, it’s easier for a group of people to work together for service planning changes instead of relying on one or two experts to figure out the art of route planning. Even if users are not experts in transit planning, they can all use Remix to provide a good base for other transportation planners to springboard off of. It’s easy to use and visually appealing.

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We’ve had a big improvement since Remix entered our lives. Previously, in order to show a map or do an analysis with the same quality or data points as in Remix, we had to get information from multiple parts of the organization. Now I can check directly in Remix. The process has streamlined from up to a month down to less than an hour.

Jesper Runfors

Urban and Regional Planner, Västtrafik

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How have you been able to improve route planning in the context of geography?

We’ve experienced a big improvement across the board since Remix entered our lives, and one such area has been in the context of geography. Prior to Remix when we would talk about routes without any visuals, only people who were familiar with the routes would understand the conversation. Now, the visuals in Remix bring clarity for everyone. There is a difference between showing things diagrammatically versus showing them on a map. It’s valuable to have everyone looking at the same platform, the same visuals, and the same facts- all of which make the conversation more productive for municipalities. It has allowed us to be more geography-driven and more inclusive of all participants in a discussion.

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Remix brings clarity for everyone. It’s valuable to have everyone looking at the same platform, the same visuals, and the same facts-- all of which make the conversation more productive for municipalities.

Lovisa Borgstrom

Urban and Regional Planner, Västtrafik

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Tell us about some specific projects that you’ve worked on with your municipalities using Remix.

We have continuous dialogues with our municipalities about various topics. We use Remix to describe what we want to say in a visually compelling way. One municipality (Lidköping) wanted to build out a new area, and we explained to them that if they build it that way, the impact on other parts of the city and network could be unfavorable. We were able to visually show the potential route and population density to better articulate how the ridership would not be strong. This allowed us to get on the same page with our discussion-- the municipality brought their experience and observations to the conversation, and Remix helped us reach a better understanding. 

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In addition, having accurate data at our fingertips helps build trust between the Västtrafik team and our municipal partners. As an example, we had to talk with Gothenburg about removing a route that was sparsely populated along the line. With Remix data, we could see that most people could walk to a nearby route even without this line. We were able to communicate this with data and visuals which strengthened our discussion with the municipality. 

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Similarly, we discovered with Twin Cities that there were 35 lines that weren’t efficiently laid out. We used Remix to understand that we could reduce to 20 lines but still provide the same level of service. That was a big win for all. 

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With Remix, we don’t risk making the wrong decisions based on gut feeling. We can now make more real-time, data-driven decisions that positively impact our communities.

Felix Stööp Lindgren

Urban and Regional Planner, Västtrafik

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Describe your relationships working with the Remix team.

We’ve had many discussions with the Remix team regarding data layers, filtering, and Jane. We feel we’ve been well listened to. It’s a good relationship- we feel we’re working together on a personal level.

What’s next for Västtrafik?

We have an overall goal of increasing the number of riders- we want to double our riders by 2025. We’re looking forward to leveraging Remix to show us where we have the potential to increase riders. We also have mode shift goals like biking and walking. We’re excited about what’s to come and glad to have the technology to support our long-term vision.