“ We can collect the data, make it look great, but without understanding what that data means and having a guiding hand to help customers use it, it’ s going to be for naught,” said Farabaugh.“ The FAST ™ team reviews the data with the customer,” he said. They help them build dashboards that the finance, maintenance, and operations teams can look at and say,‘ Hey, does this warrant a call? Should we put more buses in service on this route?’”“ We’ re putting all of their information into a centralized data warehouse,” Roth added,“ and focusing on key APIs and KPIs so they’ re not flooded. They’ re just seeing what they need to target.”
Scalability for Transit Whether a transit agency runs five buses or 500, cloud technology can be scaled to meet its unique demands.“ We specialize in those mid to smaller-level agencies because that’ s where we started,” Farabaugh said.“ But larger properties can do more with that data. They usually have bigger departments, so in some ways it makes our job easier. But in other ways, it can be more complex.”“ Scalability of our system is built in,” he continued.“ If I need more processors or database storage, I can do that on the backend. The customer is completely unaware. It’ s the same application whether you’ re a big agency or a small one.”
“ We also have modular service selection,” Roth said.“ We’ re really only providing the components each customer needs. Plus, we offer customizable dashboards and a large number of configurable business rules to tailor each deployment.” That consistency matters, Farabaugh said.“ We’ ve had customers, such as CEOs, move between agencies and tell us it’ s the same interface, same response and feel,” he said.“ That’ s something we’ re very proud of.”
Long-Term Cost Savings One common hesitation among agencies is the perceived high cost of cloud migration. But long-term benefits far outweigh initial investment.“ Agencies moving from on-prem to cloud are saving on IT costs, energy costs, and HR,” said Farabaugh.“ You’ re not paying monthly bills to power racks of servers, or staffing people to manage them. Understanding your data helps you apply for grants, know your service impact, and better serve your community. It’ s also much more transparent to the public; data isn’ t from a piece of paper. It’ s real-time, from the vehicle, from the system.” Roth pointed to other benefits:“ They’ ve got scalability they didn’ t have before. Reduced downtime. If there’ s a problem, it can be quickly resolved without waiting on parts or IT support.”“ Security, too, is top of mind,” Roth added.“ We’ re constantly monitoring our cloud infrastructure 24 / 7. That’ s a huge advantage for cost avoidance down the road.” Farabaugh agreed:“ We go through SOC 2 Type 2 audits annually. Customers should feel very comfortable that their data is not just secure, but professionally audited and protected.”
Reliability and Redundancy Redundancy and failover capabilities in the cloud also ensure agency data remains accessible, even during disaster scenarios.“ Our servers are replicated,” said Farabaugh.“ If one zone goes down, we can pull it up in another. The databases are backed up, encrypted, and replicated. Customers should feel very comfortable that their data will not be lost or compromised.” This is far more robust than legacy, on-site systems where outages could result in hours or days of downtime.
Looking Forward What does the future look like for cloud-based operations in transit? Roth and Farabaugh see three key trends on the horizon: improved security, expanded AI applications, and architecture innovations like serverless computing.“ The number one thing that’ s constantly evolving is enhanced data security,” Roth said.“ Security infrastructure is changing every day. We’ re deploying new tools constantly to monitor and mitigate threats.” Artificial intelligence will also play an increasing role.“ Cloud platforms are making it easier to analyze huge datasets,” Roth said.“ That gives us quicker and more intelligent answers. It’ s only going to get bigger.”
14 | BUSRIDE. COM | JUNE / JULY 2025