Transport routes

A transport route is a standing van run to a shared destination: one driver, one facility, and a roster of riders. Every service day, the route automatically generates each rider's trip — pre-assigned to the route's driver, in your chosen pickup order — so nobody has to rebuild the same run every morning.

Use a transport route when several riders travel together to the same place (an adult day program, a dialysis center, a workshop). For individual standing rides, use Recurring trips instead.

Tip: Moving an existing rider onto a route? Use Add to route… on their trip in the Trip List — it adds them to the roster, ends their recurring trip cleanly, and the route takes over from its next service day.

Create a route

1. Open Transport Routes in the sidebar and click Create route.
2. Route name — how the run appears on the Dispatch board (e.g. "Sunrise ADC — AM").
3. Direction — a route runs one way: to the facility (a morning pickup run) or from it (an afternoon return run). Most programs need a pair: an AM route and a PM route.
4. Facility — pick the destination from your facilities (set up under Settings). Its address becomes the shared stop.
5. Arrive-by time (to-facility) or Depart time (from-facility) — when the van should reach or leave the facility.
6. Service days — the weekdays the route runs.
7. Driver & vehicle — the default driver for the run; the vehicle follows the driver. You can also set a different driver for specific weekdays.
8. Add Riders (see below) and click Create route.

The rider roster and run order

Each rider on the roster has a stop address (usually home), and — on to-facility routes — a pickup time.

The roster's numbered order is the run order: #1 is picked up first (or dropped off first on a return route) every day. Use the up/down arrows next to each rider to arrange the true driving order. Dispatch can still adjust a single day on the board without changing the standing order.

Tip: Set the order to match how the driver actually drives the run — the daily stop list on the Dispatch board follows it.

Managing the run order from the Dispatch board

On the Dispatch board's stop view, each driver's route renders as its own collapsible section. In the run's edit mode you can reorder stops within a route, or move a whole route's block earlier or later in the driver's day. When you save, ZeitRide asks how to apply it:

• This day only — today's board changes; the standing order is untouched.
• Save as standing order — the new pickup order becomes the route's roster order, so every future day generates this way.

Some arrangements only make sense for a single day (for example, interleaving another run's stops between a route's pickups) — those save as day-only, and the dialog explains why.

Keeping an eye on a route

Opening a route shows how it's running: a summary of upcoming generated trips, each rider's next trip date, and a View trips link that opens the Trip List filtered to that rider. If a rider on the roster still has an active recurring trip covering the route's days, the editor warns you — their trips keep coming from the recurring trip (and the route skips those days) until the recurring trip ends.

What happens every day

Each service day, the route generates one trip per rider — assigned to the route's driver, sequenced by the roster order. On the Dispatch board's stop view, the run appears grouped under the route name with its rider count, so the whole van reads as one unit.

If a rider already has another active trip that day, the route skips that date for them rather than double-booking.

Broker-connected routes

If your riders' trips come from a broker, the route can be broker-connected. As the broker transmits each day's trips, they attach to the matching route trips automatically — the board shows a confirmation count for the run (for example "7 riders · 7/7 broker-confirmed").

A route trip the broker hasn't confirmed yet stays out of billing — it never becomes a claim or an invoice until the broker's trip arrives and attaches. That keeps weekend gaps or schedule mismatches from ever billing incorrectly.

Changing a route

• Edits apply to future days. Roster, order, time, and driver changes flow onto upcoming days automatically; days already completed are never touched.
• Apply changes from — pick a future date to schedule a change (a new rider starting next Monday, a driver swap next month). Leave it blank to apply from today.
• Pause a route to stop generating new days without losing the setup — for a program closure or a seasonal break.
• Deleting a route that has already run keeps its history: the route is archived and its completed trips remain for billing and reporting. Only a route that never ran is fully removed.

Related: Recurring NEMT routes