Vancouver-based Spare is expanding beyond transit operations with an AI platform designed to connect the data, institutional knowledge and workflows used across transit agencies and cities.
Spare AI brings together information from operational systems, financial platforms, policies, contracts and board records. The platform aims to help employees find answers and complete work without needing to know which system holds the information.
The launch follows a growing footprint in Spare’s home province. As Techcouver previously reported, the company was selected by TransLink to modernize HandyDART across Metro Vancouver and announced a collaboration with BC Transit to introduce a unified digital platform across 28 transit systems with handyDART services.
Spare AI broadens the company’s reach into planning, finance, administration and leadership. Employees can ask questions in natural language and receive source-backed answers specific to their roles, while AI agents can gather information, analyze changes and carry out tasks across connected systems.
Agencies control what employees and AI can access, which actions can be automated and when human approval is required. An optional community component will let organizations learn from peer benchmarks while controlling what information they share.
“Transit has always solved its hardest problems together. What we heard from our community was clear: agencies want AI they can trust, and they don’t want to figure it out alone,” said Kristoffer Vik Hansen, Spare’s CEO and co-founder.
The expansion builds on Spare’s investment in AI-powered transit software, supported by its 2024 $42-million Series B round led by Inovia Capital.
Spare says agencies are already using AI to investigate performance and query operational data without manually building reports. The company reported a 2,247% increase in Spare AI usage from March to August, although it did not disclose the underlying usage figures.
Alongside the launch, Spare is opening its Spare AI Founding Agency Program for a small cohort of transit agencies and cities. Participants will receive early access, subsidized AI credits during their first year and implementation support from Spare’s product and engineering teams, while helping shape the platform’s development.
Leave a Reply