announcements

Improvements

• Make the menus look the same (main vs submenu)
• Change category to “Vent” for unsavory postings
• Add a “Days of History” slider to the Track Predictor
• Internationalize the Zip Code
• New choices for Rail Warriors target audiences

Plus various other fixes and enhancements for security and stability

Overview: In order to be able to serve you best, we’re rebalancing the portfolio of products we offer to commuters.

What’s new:

• We have made thousands of enhancements and fixes to The Clever Commute free app.
  It now has all the features you’d expect (push notifications, geolocation, customization)…and much more.
• Clever Commute’s in-app  Premium service continues to evolve.
  This is not a blog post promoting Premium…but we will say “Wow.”

What’s going away:

• Free e-mail-based send/receive of messages
• Our old premium offering, which we called The Inside Track

Your call to action: (1) cut-over to the free app and (2) unsubscribe from the old listserve way
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More Info: In the 18 months since we put out the first version of the app, we have invested mightily in getting to the point where we can say it’s time to move all remaining users from e-mail to the app (what people are saying about the app).

The free app does so much more than the old e-mail service. Plus, it works on iPhones, iPad, Android devices and even some Blackberries.

As we manged the customer migration to the app, we heard about two features that some riders want:

1. Continue to receive their information as e-mail
2. Follow the information on multiple train/bus lines

If you are still hungry for those and other features, then check out Clever Commute Premium. As a lifelong commuter (and 20 years on NJ Transit’s Montclair Boonton Line) I can say with confidence that our Premium service provides what you are looking for.

Premium does much more than #1 and #2. Yes – it gives you an enhanced e-mail experience where messages are delivered faster and more-reliably. You also have the the alert in the subject line of the e-mail (you may not even need to open them!). The message body has an enhanced format for readability. Also, you can hide/block messages based sender.
You have full control over when you receive the messages (e.g., time-of-day, day-of-week). You can pause/resume/snooze your alert messages, as well.

A few closing notes on Clever Commute Premium

• It is sold as an in-app purchase via your app store
• There is a 30-day free trial
• There are at least 8 ways to be eligible for free access to Premium

• Are you in that small percentage of Clever Commuters who share the info which powers our crowdsourced offering?
• Have you ever thought I have something to share with fellow commuters…but it is actually of interest to more than just the people on my route?

The headline: Please upgrade to version 2.2.3 of the free app in order to benefit from two amazing enhancements.  (To learn more about your version and how to upgrade, then  click here)

More Info: When our free app went live less than two years ago, we promised you that we would keep on enhancing it.  Since then, we have literally made thousands of changes and fixes…and we are far from done. Our latest version is a bit of a watershed since it provides 2 new capabilities

1. Rail Warriors  can send broadcast alerts – There is a subset of Clever Commuters who are amazing sharers (quality and quantity). We have promoted them to Rail Warrior so that they can now share info on more than one line/route at time.
   Example: A Rail Warrior at NY Penn station sees something which  is of interest to all riders on LIRR (or NJ Transit…or even both!) can now share with all.
2. Automated (re) sharing – After 11 years of running Clever Commute, we know what kind of information is of interest to the various rider communities. Starting with version 2.2.3, whenever something is shared which we feel you need to know about our new technology will automatically share it with those who would value it (regardless of which route it originated on)
   Example: A NJ Transit rider reports single tracking. Our “robots” will then share that with all NJ Transit train riders.

New Features

• Improved Track Predictions
• Add “voting” / validation to track predictions
• Visual cues to identify messages sent to more than one route
• Enhanced automated curation and sharing for similar routes

Fixes

• Suppress multiple self-mails from elevated senders
• Leaderboard metrics fixes
• Fix problems with iOS Push Nortifications experienced by some on some devices

Monday morning’s commute has the potential to be a challenging one. The saving grace is that it’s a holiday for some.

If you ride NJ Transit: We highly suggest you pay attention to the excellent work of two advocacy organizations: The NJ Association of Railroad Passengers and the The Lakawana Coalition.
The later has compiled an excellent and detailed analysis of the return of NJT service at Hoboken.

If you ride LIRR: their web site will be the best place for up-to-date info about service in light of their accident over the weekend

All riders:

1. Please continue to use our free app to send and browse the latest crowdsourced alerts
2. Did you know? You also have the option to receive the  alerts via Twitter!
3. Your feedback is important to us. Good, bad or otherwise, we love to hear your thoughts and ideas