Announcing MaaS for COVID-19 from SHARE Mobility
How do you increase driver safety when transporting someone with COVID-19?
Our mission to bring safe, shared mobility to cities was tested in March 2020. COVID-19 has created immense challenges and the mobility industry (public transit, ride-sharing, microtransit & micromobility) took a major hit as people stayed home. But not everyone could stay home, like the essential workers, on the front line serving our community. SHARE has continued to provide mobility services during the pandemic to essential workers. To make a safer experience for riders and drivers, we added daily health screenings for drivers, vehicle cleaning after every ride, and we asked riders to wear masks. SHARE’s customers are large organizations with transportation problems and we were presented with a new challenge. . . How do you transport someone with COVID-19? Healthcare providers and testing sites have been doing the best they can to provide transportation to workers and patients. The solutions have ranged from using ambulances (high cost for the patient) or cabs (high risk for the driver) to requiring that family members provide transportation.
SHARE already had part of the solution: our software can track and manage shared mobility for COVID-19 and our national network of professional drivers are licensed and experienced in healthcare transportation. But if we were going to take on healthcare workers and patients with COVID-19, we needed the right vehicle to protect drivers. In Detroit, Honda had produced and deployed 10 vehicles to be used for healthcare workers and patient transportation.
We are proud to announce that beginning July 2020, SHARE will be offering a mobility-as-a-service solution for COVID-19 using the Honda Odyssey to help hospitals and cities with transportation for testing, patients, and employees. Available in all 50 states, SHARE’s MaaS solution for healthcare will help organizations safely transport patients or employees with COVID-19.
About Modified Honda Odyssey for Covid-19 Transportation
Honda’s team has done an amazing job of quickly responding with a vehicle solution that addresses the transportation challenges that operators and healthcare providers are facing with COVID-19. In response to the novel healthcare crisis, the engineers at Honda modified the Odyssey specifically for moving patients with COVID-19.
What’s special about this vehicle?
- Pressurized front cabin significantly reduces driver exposure to potential pathogens.
- Sealed clear polycarbonate (plastic) panel between the driver and passengers.
- The Odyssey’s ventilation system software was tuned to reduce the potential for droplet infection migration during transportation.
- Compliant with guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for negative pressure rooms in medical and research facilities.
Honda’s engineers redesigned the interior of the Honda Odyssey van to create a barrier that helps isolate riders through the use of physical barriers and pressure differentials. In addition to the unique air control and passenger separation, we like the Honda Odyssey for COVID-19 transportation because it is right sized for 1–3 passengers and can accommodate bags or luggage. The automatic doors allow for touch-less entry and exit and the driver does not need to exit the vehicle. Plus, SHARE started using the Honda Odyssey in 2018 and we already know our drivers love them.
You can read the full press release from Honda about the modified Odyssey here and their process.
Watch a short video HERE to see what the Honda engineers did to create a safer environment for drivers in response to COVID-19.
SHARE’S COVID-19 TRANSPORTATION SOLUTION
We start with an assessment of the transportation demand and we design a MaaS program that is right-sized (vehicles/hours of service/reserved demand/service area). Once we are ready to go live, hospital admins receive access to SHARE’s simple online ride-request system. Organizations have the option to invite riders to the SHARE mobile app if they have a recurring need for rides. SHARE’s matching engine ensures that requests for specialized COVID-19 rides always get matched with COVID-19 specialized vehicles. SHARE Mobility has selected the modified Honda Odyssey for COVID-19 to complete the total MaaS solution for healthcare providers.
Our software is designed to maximize the use of vehicle assets and share them across organizations that need transportation. The network gets more efficient as more organizations use it and we have designed the COVID-19 program to spread the costs across multiple providers. We talked to hospitals and we heard a consistent willingness to share resources to fight COVID-19. This program can be a part of an essential public service to provide a safer environment for drivers that are being asked to transport someone with COVID-19 or employees that experience exposure to patients.
Our goal is to allow a healthcare provider to subscribe to the COVID-19 mobility service that will be shared across multiple hospitals and healthcare providers in a city.
When we say “total solution”, we mean everything that is needed to make sure patients and employees exposed to COVID-19 get a ride when they need it. We are providing:
• Software for patient and employee ride requests
• SHARE Rider Mobile App for iOS and Android
• Honda Odyssey for COVID-19
• Operations Management
• Professional Drivers
• Insurance
• Data & Analytics
How Does It Work:
- 1 or more healthcare providers in a city subscribe to SHARE for 12 months to get started
- Healthcare workers or invited riders can use SHARE’s web-based ride request website or mobile app.
- Professional drivers are dispatched, using the Honda modified Odyssey, to transport.
- Use of the vehicle is optimized with SHARE’s mobility software to lower the cost per ride, providing significant savings over ambulance rides and increased safety vs a traditional cab ride.
- Healthcare providers receive detailed usage reports and SHARE provides continuous improvement of mobility services to meet present demand.
We Are Ready to Help
We are all still figuring out how to live with the realities of COVID-19. It has put a collective strain on our world that almost no one living has experienced. Now even shaking hands seems like risky behavior. We are adapting and making sure that when a global pandemic happens again, we will be ready. But we are still not out of it and many believe the worst of the first wave is yet to come. Without speculation on the state of COVID-19, everyone should agree that we need to continue to be vigilant and work to identify, isolate, and heal those who become infected with COVID-19. SHARE is ready to help you assess the need and plan for a solution. Let us know where we can help.
ABOUT SHARE Mobility
SHARE Mobility is changing the way cities move by making it easy to plan and share rides. SHARE has developed technology for a world where everyone is a passenger. We partner with employers, schools, senior living, municipalities and healthcare providers to solve mobility problems. At SHARE, we believe access to transportation means access to opportunities. We are creating the operating system for shared mobility in Smart Cities. Learn more at RidewithSHARE.com
