TART Connect

I believe this new app was designed for a larger city application not a small community. All of North Lake Tahoe is connected by two roads branching out from Tahoe city. 28 eastbound and 89, both south bound(west shore) and northbound(Olympic valley). I personally had to walk 3 hours one night recently cause the new app wasn’t accepting new rides down wlakeblvd well within the “operating hours”. I’ve heard other stories of friends getting off of work in Olympic valley “palisades” and not having a way home within the “operating hours”. The old app would notify me of whether or not I missed the “official cutoff”. Now I’m being told to keep trying, so I’m supposed to sit there at the end of my shift/ after work and press the reset button for an hour or more and hope I get home? It was never like this with the previous app. I haven’t been able to order a ride home from work in Tahoe city after 8:15pm cause the app tells me the soonest ride is a walk to the transit center at 6:30am to hope on the regular tart bus. The previous app would plug me in and say I’d have to wait. Sometimes on busy holiday weekends that wait time might be two hours plus but atleast I’m in the queue. I know I have a way home. Road construction/tourist traffic is a huge part of north Lake Tahoe. Often times drivers that are local and know the area can avoid this road construction by making a turn that’s not on the apps “path”. The strictness of the app for the drivers simply doesn’t make sense. Sometimes drivers have to back track into a 30 minute road construction stop that they just waited in for 30 minutes and then straight back into that road same road construction for another 30 minutes or more. This adds up quickly when the driver can’t deny a possible ride,also a rider might be in that van for a very long time. Every ride time down the line will be affected by this. This could be mitigated by trusting the local drivers to know where to go and when. Winter driving. We trust our local drivers to transport us safely in blizzards. We live in the mountains. Driving in the snow is a regular occurrence I’d hope that my driver is an experienced local that knows how to navigate those conditions and won’t have to be mislead by this app. At this point in time I believe the new app will be a hazard for anyone on the roadways this coming winter. Listen to the local drivers and riders.

Huge downgrade from the previous app, which is shocking seeing as via is a billion dollar company vs the old tiny one. The app and algorithm itself is worse, with stupid decision-making and map provision, but so is the service. You can’t get rides close to closing time unless you are going to kings beach. You can’t make reasonable adjustments. 5 years in and the app developers haven’t been able to master the basics of what tart connect needs.