Ride Connection Case Study

When Portland-based Ride Connection was faced with filling a position vacated by an in-house IT staff member, they turned to Polar Systems to fill the gap.

Incorporated in 1988, Ride Connection arranges transportation for older adults and people with disabilities throughout the Portland metropolitan area by contracting with local transportation providers. The organization’s diverse range of services include providing transportation for low-income job seekers and providing information and training on how to use mass-transit to older adults who may not have used it before. 

Ride Connection’s business is growing and promises to continue to grow at a fast pace as the population of Portland-area baby-boomers reaches the age where they are driving less, so planning for future capacity increases is key in the minds of Ride Connection executives. A significant portion of the organization’s ridership is already being arranged by grown children who are looking for transportation for their elderly parents.

Currently, Ride Connection employs a staff of 31. Their network is supported by three servers and the organization’s phone system is implemented using VoIP. Database management and tracking is an important portion of the IT mix, because the organization’s funding depends on matching individual rider costs with specific funding sources (reimbursement money comes from the Oregon Department of Transportation and TriMet, among other sources). Ride Connection also employs a sophisticated route scheduling and dispatching management software package called RouteMatch to schedule trips.
 
It would have been difficult for Ride Connection to hire an internal IT resource to handle all the network and software maintenance work that is required to support an operation of this level of sophistication. In the past, the organization depended on an internal IT staffer, and when a new challenge came up, that person would often need to do research on the problem before being able to solve it, which would take time.  For example, they invested in some servers, but they were not immediately put into operation because of other in-house priorities and because Ride Connection’s on-staff IT person at the time was not sure how to set up the hardware to fully meet the organization’s needs.

In mid-2007 an alternative to meeting Ride Connection’s IT needs arose when the organization was contacted by Polar Systems, who volunteered to audit the organization’s IT resources. In the process, Polar was able to resolve the server problem that had confounded Ride Connection’s former IT staff member and was able to get the system up and running smoothly within two weeks. After that, Ride Connection signed up for Polar’s ongoing network management service, PolarStar.

Josh Cansler, Ride Connection’s Executive Administrator and HR Manager, has been impressed with the Polar team’s depth of knowledge. “With the PolarStar service, I can call for help anytime,” said Josh.  “If the person at Polar that answers the phone doesn’t have the answer, someone else at the company is sure to know what the answer is. It’s no longer necessary for us to spend hours researching IT issues.”

As part of the PolarStar monthly maintenance service, Polar Systems representatives handle all the software upgrades needed by Ride Connection, which have in recent months included an upgrade of all three servers to Windows server 2003 and Microsoft Exchange, upgrading of all employee workstations to Windows XP (from Windows 2000), and installation of Office 2007 on all workstations. Polar is also available to help with special projects. For example, Ride Connection is currently working with Polar Systems to expand the organization’s VoIP call center service to provide better call management.

The PolarStar service includes a Quarterly Business Review where strategic guidance is provided to help Ride Connection plan for future network needs. Polar also provides a monthly report that is very useful to Ride Connection’s administrators. The report tracks the operating system version and license agreements applying to each computer on the network, as well as spam filter statistics (34,000 spams and 9 viruses were trapped and prevented from affecting Ride Connection’s computers in one recent month). 

Polar’s network support staff is able to do most of their work remotely. They do remote monitoring of Ride Connection’s system using powerful tools that tell them in detail what is going on in order to avoid problems that might otherwise cause damage to the system. For example, Polar’s tools are able to tell if a member of Ride Connection’s office staff fails to replace a recorded backup tape with a clean one for the next backup cycle. Polar is also notified if someone at Ride Connection downloads an executable file from the Internet.

“Polar’s remote monitoring gives us tremendous peace of mind,” said Josh Cansler. “With them monitoring our network behind the scenes, we don’t need to worry about the network crashing.” 

When software patches are needed, Polar does them remotely, unlike the old days when an IT person would need to walk from computer to computer and load the disks manually.

“If I can’t figure out what’s going on with my computer,” says Josh, “Polar can dial in remotely and diagnose and repair the problem, usually without even coming to my office.”

Sometimes, computers will have issues that can’t be resolved remotely. In these cases, Polar sends in a technician to resolve the problems. It is in instances such as these where the quality of an IT staff is really tested by their customers. In the case of Polar’s people, Ride Connection’s staff has had a very pleasant experience since day one.

To quote Josh Cansler: “From my observations, Polar Systems prides itself on hiring individuals with the balance of IT skill and customer service orientation that traditionally do not come hand in hand. It’s those unique individuals that make Polar Systems what it is today. I have always had a positive experience working with the Polar team.”

“Polar Systems removes the IT hassles so we can focus on our mission,” concludes Josh.