A Milwaukee-area entrepreneur is part of the team behind Ride MCTS, a free-to-download app that allows people to purchase tickets for rides on the bus.
Ride MCTS is a project of area Jewish native and University of Wisconsin – Madison graduate Aaron Redlich, 27, in partnership with Xuan Zhang, 24, and Art Chen, 24, who are also Madison graduates. The project is already under contract with the Milwaukee County Transit System.
Screenshot of the app. Ride MCTS is the first and only Milwaukee transit app where riders can purchase tickets for rides on the app.
“The app allows people to get real time information for buses, plan trips, see routes and buy tickets with their phones,” Redlich said. Real-time information means GPS tracking of the bus en-route.
Ride MCTS is meant to make transit more transparent. Redlich said it “takes off the guess-work of riding the bus.”
There are two types of tickets available on the app for purchase: $2 for 90 minutes of rides and $5 for 24 hours of rides. Riders can buy tickets through credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay and, predicted to be ready by Chronicle press time, through Android Pay.
Payment is quick, “a one-tap system” Redlich said.
Upon boarding, a rider shows his phone to the bus driver, who checks to see the paid ticket on the screen.
Ride MCTS is the highest rated mobile ticketing app in North America, according to Redlich.
It is the first and only Milwaukee transit app where riders can purchase tickets for rides on the app, according to Brendan Conway, chief marketing communications officer of Milwaukee County Transit.
“Lots of people have smart phones and are comfortable buying services on the phone,” Conway said. According to him, 4,000 people have downloaded the app.
The idea behind Ride MCTS has evolved from the group’s college days. As a college student in Dane County, there was “no easy way to track the bus,” Redlich said. Redlich met Zhang and Chen and they developed their first transit app geared towards UW-Madison students called UW Bus. It grew to be “the number one app in Madison with 50,000 downloads,” Redlich said.
In summer of 2016, they created the website PreFare for the Milwaukee County Transit System; riders could buy digital e-tickets for the bus shuttle for Summerfest. “We were looking for a solution for Summerfest bus service because it was cash intensive and slow,” Conway said. From the PreFare for website, 30,000 tickets sold which accounted for 27 percent of the total riders, according to Conway.
Aaron Redlich
Then, upon request from the Milwaukee County Transit System, Redlich and his team expanded their endeavors and designed this app, he said. Redlich described his experience working with the Milwaukee County Transit System as “an incredible honor.”
Redlich is a graduate of Bader Hillel Academy in Whitefish Bay. His connection with the Jewish community has been “nothing but the best experience; the network is very supportive,” Redlich said.
Redlich’s enthusiasm for entrepreneurship comes from there being “an incredible number of daily problems that need to be solved.”
Conway described working with Redlich and his team on previous projects and the Ride MCTS app as a “great relationship. We are their first big client. We get all their expertise.”
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Ride MCTS
There are two types of tickets available on the app for purchase: $2 for 90 minutes of rides and $5 for 24 hours of rides.
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