Cities spend hundreds of millions each year on paratransit services, or public rides for disabled residents, yet those services remain limited and unpredictable. Wheelchair users often face late pickups, hindering them from getting to work or medical appointments on time. As populations age, the strain on these services and city budgets continues to grow.
Vancouver-based startup Spare says it can apply modern technology to improve cities’ paratransit systems and bring more on-demand services to the mix. Its software-as-a-service platform integrates different types of local transportation services – including wheelchair-accessible paratransit services, local on-demand microtransit operators, and even ride-hail like Uber and Lyft – to match riders with the right service and vehicle operators for their needs.
“So if, for example, you have a temporary disability, but you’re fine with using an Uber, then maybe instead of sending a big wheelchair-accessible vehicle with a highly trained driver, we can send you an Uber,” Kristoffer Vik Hansen, Spare’s CEO, told TechCrunch. “You still pay the same cost, but the cost to the transit agency would be much lower. And that’s where the secret sauce comes in.”
Vik Hansen noted that many cities run paratransit services “extremely inefficiently with super legacy technology, like 20 to 30-year-old software,” making them “extremely expensive to run.”
He pointed to New York City’s paratransit service as one of the most expensive in the country. In 2023, the MTA spent $517 millio on paratransit services in 2023, up from $412 million in 2022.
“We started Spare to build an operations system that transit agencies and cities can use to make their own transit systems much better for everyone, whether that’s their back office staff, their drivers or their riders,” Vik Hansen said. “But also reduce the cost of providing those services.”
The CEO also noted that Spare’s AI uses historical trip data, driver performance and real-time traffic insights from Google to create more efficient routes and allow for more on-demand paratransit services.
The startup’s main competitor is Via. Since acquiring Remix in 2021, Via expanded from an on-demand microtransit operator to a transit tech company that provides cities and agencies with everything from the backend software to run transit services and rider- and driver-facing applications, to data and planning tools to improve existing systems.
By focusing its attention on paratransit, Spare has been able to carve a niche for itself and get its foot in the door of major cities. While Via’s software is deployed in 750 cities across 40 countries, according to a Via spokesperson, it offers paratransit integration in only 100 of them. Spare’s software is present in over 200 cities in North America, Europe and Japan, including Austin, Dallas, the Bay Area, Stockholm and Osaka. Its focus in those cities is paratransit, but Vik Hansen says Spare also has a thriving microtransit offering and is exploring ways to incorporate non-emergency medical and school transportation services.
The company’s technology and approach have garnered the attention of investors who want to see Spare scale into new verticals and geographic regions. The company raised a $30 million ($42 million CAD) Series B round led by Inovia Capital, with participation from Kensington Capital and Nicola Wealth, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
“As early supporters from the Series A round, we’ve seen Spare evolve from a promising startup to a key player in the transit space,” Dylan Freeze, director at Kensington Capital, said in a statement. “With this new funding, we’re eager to see Spare drive further innovation and empower more transit agencies to deliver flexible, efficient, and modern services.”