A demand-driven intercity travel company wants commuters to register for their preferred route into London for a new and covid-secure pop-up coach service to be created.
Travel company Snap fills a gap for people who feel caught between the risks of using traditional public transport during the pandemic and the practicalities of driving to work in cities which are rightly discouraging car use and promoting walking or cycling.
Those who live and work close by to each other and are concerned about their commute to work on busy forms of public transport are being urged by Snap Travel to pre-register their ideal route into the City in order for it to be up and running for free this month.
Using local and executive 50-seater coaches, Snap will only onboard 12 commuters per pop-up route to ensure their journeys to work and back home again are safe and comply to social distancing guidelines.
Founder Thomas Ableman comments: “Tubes, trams, buses and trains aren’t designed for social distancing, and inter-city driving is costly and impractical. Our covid-secure travel gives commuters another option, and with more people moving back into the workplace, we know it’s an option that will appeal to many – but we need the route votes for it to become a reality.”
To create a route, commuters have to pre-register online, so Snap knows exactly which route has to be established. Once done, a free service is then available to commuters for one week.
Also, when live, the bus driver checks them in via a driver app so there are no tickets and no need for contact. The driver will only permit those who have registered, ensuring numbers of passengers travelling will not exceed the safety utilisation threshold.
Within a day or so, Snap can create pop-up routes and customised pick-up points for workers, drawing on data from its demand aggregation engine and the company’s workforce data.
Thomas adds: “Unlike traditional public transport, every vehicle is sanitised between each trip and offers free hand gel to its passengers. Most importantly, each seat is used only once on each journey minimising risk further. By offering customised local pick-ups for workers, avoiding tube stations, bus stations or train stations, Snap can help companies keep their workforces safe and commuters will have a much pleasant journey to and from their office.”
After every trip, passengers rate their experience. Snap uses these ratings to allocate new trips to the operators that passengers like best, keeping quality high. 9/10 of Snap’s online reviews are five-star.
Innovative Tech platforms like Snap are giving small, top quality coach companies across the UK a chance to compete with much bigger players in the intercity travel market. That’s good news for them and great news for customers, who get more choice, better quality and great value and safer travel.
