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Real Commuter Gamification in the Tour de Redmond

Washington state’s Greater Redmond Transportation Management Association (GRTMA) has been running an annual bike-focused commuter challenge since 2006. The challenge, cleverly called the “Tour de Redmond“, is designed to recognize commuters who regularly bike to work, and to introduce drivers to cycling with the hope of inspiring long-term behavior change. RideAmigos first supported the Tour de Redmond in 2012, when the organizers used our cloud-based platform to manage registration and run the challenge. We can’t think of a better way to start and end a summer workday than biking through beautiful Redmond, Washington. We’re proud to be powering the Tour de Redmond again this year as an official sponsor of the event.

RideAmigos facilitated the program’s successful transition to a true gamification-based commuter engagement strategy. Participants can view their rankings on a live leaderboard and instantly compare themselves and their team to other riders. The commuter challenge features make it easy for riders to track their progress toward the program’s prizes, all while engaging their competitive spirits.

For program organizers, a commuter management platform makes it easy to generate reports, maps, and visualizations. These features give GRTMA officials useful and actionable insights into commuter behaviors during the challenge, allowing them to make ongoing evaluations about the city’s cycling infrastructure while continuing to find new ways to encourage community members to adopt cycling as a long-term commuting solution.

After the first year of working with RideAmigos, GRTMA organizers called it the “smoothest we have ever had in the seven-year history of the competition.” They were also happy to report that using RideAmigos cloud-based platform “saved us as much as a hundred labor hours.”

The commuters in Redmond also posted some impressive results that year:

  • 583 active riders across 64 teams
  • Over 90,000 miles biked
  • Over 54 million calories burned
  • $17,000 of gas money saved
  • 45 tons of greenhouse gas emissions avoided

The Tour de Redmond has continued to build on that success. The 2018 challenge just kicked off at the beginning of June and RideAmigos is proud to be a part of it again this year. We’re looking forward to seeing this year’s results!

If you’d like to learn more about what our platform and programs can do for you, or if you are looking for advice on jump-starting your own commuter challenges, get started here.