Text-A-Tip Service Announced for Transit Customers

See-something, Text-something. Free Text-A-Tip service announced for transit customers

ELERTS Corp., the leading provider of See Something, Say Something mobile apps for mass transit systems, announced free Text-A-Tip service for new ELERTS Transit customers who sign up before December 30.

ELERTS Transit app works with iPhones and Android Smartphones. Riders use the app to submit reports containing photos, video, text descriptions and GPS maps, pinpointing the problem area. Now, riders who do not have a Smartphone may also submit tips, by texting to ELERTS Text-A-Tip service.

When you combine the transit systems presently using the ELERTS Transit mobile app– including MARTA in Atlanta, the MBTA in Boston, the NFTA in Buffalo, the VTA in Santa Clara and BART in San Francisco–more than 2.5 million riders may use ELERTS Transit app to report security and safety concerns to transit police and security dispatchers. With the Text-A-Tip service, ELERTS can offer an additional resource to further contribute to the safety of transit riders.

ELERTS Text-A-Tip service is integrated with a web-based report management console, ELERTS EPICenter. Transit operators gain the convenience to receive and reply to rider-reports submitted by Text-A-Tip in the same manner as they do for reports from ELERTS Transit app.

A dedicated SMS phone number is provided to ELERTS Transit customers who wish to utilize the free Text-A-Tip service.

Said ELERTS CEO Ed English, “Riders have demonstrated a willingness to help keep their transit systems safe. Over fifty thousand incidents have been reported to transit police using our app. These include assaults, vandalism, abandoned bags, robberies, suspicious activity, drug and gun dealing, sexual harassment and medical concerns.”

Pricing for ELERTS Transit app with Text-A-Tip Service, starts at $9, 995 (plus setup fee) for transit systems with less than 50,000 daily riders.

English added, “ELERTS cut its teeth in the transit environment, where cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity can be less than ideal. Our apps are designed to never slow the rider from submitting a report. If a phone’s signal is too low to send, our transit app stores the report and sends it as soon as the signal returns. In the four years ELERTS has served the mass transit industry, we’ve steadily improved our product to make it very user-friendly to riders. Transit police gain visibility to incidents occurring on buses, trains and in stations that previously went unseen. Even though most transits have surveillance cameras, video is mostly recorded for future reference, post-incident. With ELERTS app and Text-A-Tip service, a transit receives real-time reports of trouble from riders.

The ELERTS Transit Alert app encourages riders to be watchful and to report something that is not right. The app is designed to be discreet. The camera flash is automatically disabled to not draw attention to the person submitting the report to police. The app also allows a two-way chat between the sender of the report and the transit dispatcher, so further details can be asked or instructions provided to the rider.

ELERTS Transit connects the public to transit police in a seamless way. The web-based console also enables transit systems to broadcast alerts to ELERTS Transit app users. For example, advisories on service disruptions; safety advice or BOLO (Be On the Look Out) messages may be sent to riders. Transits have used ELERTS system to ask riders to find lost children, missing dementia patients and criminal suspects, by broadcasting messages to the rider’s app.

For more information on ELERTS Transit, please call 877-256-1971 or visit elerts.connectingsmart.com.