Dadnab Delivers Transit Information to Bay Area Text Messagers

Transit riders throughout the San Francisco Bay Area can for the first time get route and schedule information using text messaging from their mobile phones.

Transportation startup Dadnab (www.dadnab.com) launched the service, which covers the multi-county area spanning San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Fremont, Oakland, Fairfield, Santa Clara, Pleasanton, Alameda, San Ramon, San Mateo, Cupertino, Berkeley, Mountain View, and other cities.

A Bay Area Dadnab user sends a text message (SMS) with an origin and destination to bay@dadnab.com. Seconds later, the user receives a text message with the optimal routes and times to get to the desired destination by rail, bus, or ferry.

Dadnab incorporates schedule information from 28 Bay Area transit providers and serves a population of more than seven million residents in the region.

Entrepreneur Roger L. Cauvin founded and operates the service.

“The Dadnab service is for people who want to reach their destinations efficiently and without having to study maps and schedules,” he says. “Having an itinerary delivered to your phone – wherever you are and whenever you want – makes public transportation easy.”

The Bay Area service not only delivers exact departure, transfer, and arrival times in text messages, it also enables commuters to travel across cities.

“A Google employee can send a single text message to find out how to get from Google headquarters in Mountain View to Apple headquarters in Cupertino,” he offers as an example.

In addition to entering their origins and destinations, Dadnab users can include desired departure or arrival times in their queries. Instructions, examples, and support are available through Dadnab’s Web site.

San Francisco resident Alicia Johnson learned about Dadnab through a friend. “Not only does Dadnab bring the convenience of text messaging to public transportation, it enables me to travel throughout the Bay Area without a car,” she says.

Dadnab also serves Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, and the tri-state New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut area.