Chicago Transit Authority Connects with City: AI Chatbot Bridges Language Barriers and Empowers Riders

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) operates one of the nation’s largest public transportation systems covering the City of Chicago and 35 surrounding suburbs. It operates 24 hours a day, boasting over a million rides on buses and trains on an average weekday. The CTA is an independent governmental agency created by state legislation.

Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) understood the need to evolve with the times to better serve a diverse community of residents and commuters in the City of Chicago and 35 surrounding suburbs. They were looking for a way to engage more closely with transit riders, answer common questions like “when is my bus going to be here?”, and allow riders to report issues easily. With a goal to boost their staff’s productivity, and provide a better rider experience, they looked to the latest technological innovations.

One such innovation was a chatbot, which enables factual, timely, and more interactive communication. Recognizing the potential of this technology, CTA partnered with Google to implement an agile communication tool designed to meet the needs of their diverse rider base.

CTA partnered with Google Public Sector to develop the Chat with CTA chatbot, a virtual assistant that allows riders to get timely updates and report issues. The chatbot brings a new level of efficiency to the CTA teams in addressing rider feedback, questions, and resolving concerns quickly. Since launch, there’s been a 16% improvement in conversation completion.

Some use cases include: The chatbot assisting the CTA in intercepting urgent situations within 5 minutes of a customer’s first chat; and delivering detailed and timely reports to maintenance crews who can clean a dirty train within 90 minutes, repair a broken AC in 48 hours, and have an out-of-service train back on track by the end of the week. The CTA staff review (and respond to, when needed) over 250 incidents per week, spanning buses, trains, and train stations; ensuring a smoother and more responsive transit experience for all.

Additionally, Chat with CTA serves a range of multi-lingual commuters in the Chicago area, providing support in 5 key languages including English, Spanish, Polish, Simplified Chinese and Filipino/Tagalog.

As a result of the close partnership between Google and CTA, the Chat with CTA chatbot was up and running in just 6 months.

Molly Poppe, CTA’s Chief Planning & Innovation Officer elaborated: “It’s a stand-alone end-to-end solution that comes with the entire software solution and package – cloud services, dialog flow, backend services, dashboards, and reporting. Not only that, but project management support and a team thinking about the next phase.”

The Chat with CTA chatbot has grown CTA’s customer service reach by over 63%, and by automating responses to frequent inquiries, has enabled CTA to streamline their customer support, improve efficiency and free up staff to focus on more strategic and complex work. CTA staff now review a wider range of incidents that span buses, trains, and train stations.

“Transit and government agencies are not known for being on the forefront of innovation and new technology,” says Poppe. “So with this tool we’ve really been able to bring the Agency along in this process to understand that new technology helps us do our job better, helps us engage with riders in a new way, and gives us more information and tools to make better decisions.”

This partnership showcases how AI can be used to modernize public services, and sets a new standard for how transit agencies apply technology to meet evolving needs and deliver better services.

The future looks bright for the Chat with CTA chatbot. Within 24 months of production, CTA’s customer service capacity will have doubled.

The CTA’s ongoing commitment to innovation includes expanding the chatbot functions through data and analytics to understand and meet rider needs and provide even more personalized assistance.

For example, Poppe envisions proactive prompts, such as suggesting when to start walking to the bus stop to avoid missing the next bus. “We want to become predictors so we can warn about delays and suggest alternative routes. That’s really what we see as the future of this tool, an additive that’s helping to shape our work at CTA. And this Chat with CTA chatbot is a jumping off point for us.”