How Ryde Streamlined Airport Workforce Mobility and Reduced Operational Inefficiencies
- -30%
- Cost per rider per shift
- 71% to 96%
- Overnight on-time rate
- NIS 2.9M
- Annual spend reduction
Challenge
A major national aviation operator responsible for 24/7 ground-crew mobility across multiple airports in Israel faced a transportation problem that grew worse with every new route the airline added. The operator employed over 3,000 ground-crew staff, maintenance technicians, and support personnel spread across two primary airports and one regional hub. Shifts ran around the clock: early morning (04:00-12:00), afternoon (12:00-20:00), and overnight (20:00-04:00). The existing shuttle system relied on three separate fleet vendors, each contracted per-airport with no coordination between them. Route planning was done quarterly in spreadsheets by a logistics coordinator who also managed facility maintenance. The result: 22 shuttle lines with an average occupancy of 51%, significant overlap on suburban corridors served by two airports, and chronic late arrivals on the 04:00 shift, where buses sometimes arrived after gate-call, forcing supervisors to authorize taxi reimbursements. Security added another layer. All shuttle vehicles entering the airport perimeter required pre-cleared driver credentials and vehicle registrations updated monthly. The logistics coordinator spent roughly 8 hours per week managing clearance paperwork across the three vendors. Annual transportation spend exceeded NIS 12M. When a new terminal expansion pushed projected headcount to 3,800, the VP of Operations requested a consolidated transportation platform that could scale without proportional cost increases.
Solution
RYDE deployed its platform across all three airport sites in a 35-day rollout, structured in two phases. Phase 1 (days 1-14) covered data ingestion and vendor consolidation. RYDE connected to the operator's workforce management system to pull shift rosters, employee home addresses, and security-clearance status for each driver and vehicle. The three fleet-vendor contracts were maintained, but RYDE became the single dispatch layer: all route assignments, vehicle allocations, and driver credentials flowed through one dashboard. The security-clearance workflow was automated. RYDE's system flagged expiring credentials 14 days in advance and generated renewal requests directly to the airport security office, cutting the coordinator's weekly clearance workload from 8 hours to under 45 minutes. Phase 2 (days 15-35) restructured the route network. RYDE's routing engine analyzed 60 days of historical ridership, shift patterns, and geographic clustering to propose a new map. The 22 lines were reduced to 17, with three cross-airport shared corridors serving suburbs within 5 km of both airports. The overnight shift, which had the worst on-time record, received dedicated smaller vehicles (16-seat) dispatched dynamically based on confirmed riders, replacing the fixed 50-seat buses that had been running at 30% occupancy. The passenger app rolled out to all 3,000 employees in week 3. Riders confirmed attendance for their next shift by 20:00 the evening before, which fed the dynamic dispatch engine. For the overnight shift, this confirmation step was critical: it allowed RYDE to right-size the vehicle and guarantee departure within 5 minutes of the scheduled time, because the system knew exactly how many riders to expect. The operator's logistics coordinator transitioned from route planner to platform administrator. Day-to-day dispatch ran automatically. The coordinator's new role focused on exception handling (weather diversions, unplanned shift additions) and monthly cost reviews with RYDE's account manager.
Result
After 90 days of full operation, the aviation operator reported a 30% improvement in operational efficiency, measured as cost-per-rider-per-shift. Total annual spend dropped from NIS 12M to a projected NIS 9.1M, a saving of NIS 2.9M. The overnight-shift on-time rate improved from 71% to 96%. Taxi reimbursements for missed shuttles dropped from an average of NIS 18,000/month to under NIS 2,000/month. Supervisors reported that the 04:00 shift change, previously the most operationally fragile transition, became the most predictable. Cross-airport route sharing saved 340 vehicle-hours per month. Three suburban corridors that previously required separate buses for each airport now ran a single consolidated line, with passengers dropped at the relevant airport based on their shift assignment. Occupancy on these shared corridors averaged 79%, up from 51% when they operated independently. Security-clearance processing time fell 91%, from 8 hours/week to approximately 45 minutes. The automated alert system caught 14 expiring credentials in the first quarter that would have previously caused day-of cancellations. One challenge: the initial rollout of the passenger app saw low adoption among overnight-shift workers, many of whom used older smartphones. The team ran a two-week in-person onboarding push at shift-change, which brought app adoption from 44% to 89% for the overnight cohort. "The overnight shift used to be our biggest headache. Dispatchers juggled phone calls at 3 AM trying to figure out who was actually coming. Now the system handles it. We focus on running the airport, not chasing buses." -- Head of Ground Operations Next steps: the operator plans to extend RYDE to a fourth regional airport opening in late 2026 and is evaluating the emissions-reporting module to support their parent company's ESG disclosure.