First published here.
In late 2019, SWAT launched in Vietnam our employee transport solution for a large industrial park. The park covers 295 hectares, houses about 100 companies and employs around 10,000 in total. We provide the technology behind the new demand-responsive shuttles that transport workers to and from work.
Prior to our service, the employees who work in the park commute either using the bus provided by their companies or through their own means such as their motorcycles. Their company buses picked them up from fixed locations that were few and far between and employees had to travel to the pick-up points on their motorcycles.
The park operators approached us wanting to provide a transport service that improves the employees’ commutes and give more value to the park’s tenants. Improving employee transport increases the attractiveness of the park and makes it easier for the tenants to recruit and retain talent despite the remote location.
Our solution gives employees more convenience by providing more direct and flexible rides. Our technology generates dynamic routes for the buses, with pick-up and drop-off points that are closer to employees’ homes, thus reducing their need for transfers. Employees book their own rides with the SWATBiz app and track the bus’s location and arrival, giving them greater flexibility and assurance about their commutes.
When the individual companies provide their own transport to their employees, it results in inefficiency with duplicate services that contain overlapping routes. The aim is for the park to offer a single pooled service, saving resources and costs across the multiple tenants. We will be rolling out to the tenants in phases, with employees from the first phase largely satisfied with the new service. The deployment is not without its challenges as we try to change people’s habits of using an app to book their transport.