This month in The Commuter: Daylight saving time is back and we’re back too, with a fresh batch of transit news for your commute. The Jawnt team is enjoying the first signs of spring by hopping on our bikes, sneaking in some sunny work hours from the Philly office patio, and shipping new features (with daylight to spare!). We hope you're finding a few moments to enjoy the season too.
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The latest commuter news
💳 More transit agencies roll out Tap to Pay
Austin’s CapMetro has quietly begun accepting taps directly from debit and credit cards to ride their buses, joining Chicago, Boston, New York and dozens more. This is exciting news for employers, because it unlocks an easier way to manage and distribute transit benefits. Read more about how “open payments” work for commuter benefits, or check out the exciting new case study below.
🦑 Rhode Island weighs a Commuter Transportation Benefits Act
Legislators in the Ocean State are hearing testimony this month to consider requiring employers with more than 500 employees to offer pre-tax transit benefits to their employees. If passed, Rhode Island would join the State of New Jersey and the Cities of Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and many more in encouraging their business communities to step up and support critical civic infrastructure. Read about the Save RIPTA campaign or check to see if your community already has a similar requirement.
🚘 Solve the first day commute dilemma Life tells us that established habits are hard to break, so why should it be easier for employees to get pre-tax parking on their first day than transit? Read about how Jawnt works with employers to solve this dilemma.
Harvard just got a smarter way to commute
Harvard University just launched a ground-up redesign of its commuter benefits program. With Jawnt, Harvard has introduced a more equitable bike benefit, consolidated its pre-tax parking and transit benefit, and expanded its transit subsidy beyond monthly MBTA passes to support all kinds of commutes, from regional Amtrak to Tap-to-Pay on the bus, subway, and ferry.
Some early highlights: Hybrid commuters who previously paid for monthly passes are projected to save an average of 36% per month on commuting costs. In the first week alone, 30% of transit riders switched to the pay-as-you-go model, with one commuter sharing, “This is going to save me a lot of money. I’m very excited!” Read the full story on our blog.
What's new in Jawnt
We just launched the Dashboard, a new self-service tool that gives commuter benefits admins easy access to program-level insights, including eligible members, enrollment, order trends, and more.
From top left: Your friendly commuter benefits experts; Jawnt's Engineering team (& Suki) hard at work in NYC; the Philly team takes advantage of no-jacket weather
🗽 Last week, Dwight and Luc both attended the From Day One Benefits Conference in NYC, chatting with benefits leaders about everything from OMNY tap-to-pay troubleshooting to robot chatbot challenges (the good news: Jawnt solves for both!).
🤠 The very next day, Dwight popped down to Houston to speak at ACT’s Red River Chapter summit about the future of transit benefits as tap-to-pay launches in Dallas, Austin, Houston, and beyond.
🚂 Our best-in-class commuter benefits roadshow continues next month. If we’re coming to your town, drop us a line!
