Prospective vendors should be offering an off-the-shelf cloud-based solution that can be maintained through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) contract. This product must be already developed, deployed, and functioning in the real world. The selected vendor must assign an account executive and a software engineer to support RIPTA. They should assist in creating a roadmap for the agency, including a comprehensive onboarding process, access to online training materials, and help with the launch of customer and internal-facing tools. If RIPTA needs support for any component of the platform, either one of the two assigned individuals must respond within 24 hours. The selected vendor will meet with RIPTA at a minimum every month to review solution performance, discuss development pipeline, review KPIs, discuss any issues and determine action steps to resolve in a timely fashion. The solution must be capable of comparing the calculated real-time arrival predictions to the arrival predictions in RIPTA’s GTFS-R feed. RIPTA is not looking for a solution that directly handles either route or scheduling planning, but it should be able to inform such activities by staff. RIPTA currently is not looking for a solution for either its Flex or Paratransit (Ride) services.
