Ridematching
Match on origin, destination, schedule, and employer, not just a straight-line radius. Route-overlap matching compares actual travel paths, and a vanpool seat finder surfaces open seats on vans that already run.
UpCommute: multi-tenant TDM platform
Run your region's whole commuter program on one platform.
Ridematching, trip planning, trip logging, rewards, Guaranteed Ride Home, challenges, surveys, and reporting, in one system under your program's brand.
The platform is in production today, with native iOS and Android apps in both app stores and a commuter database of more than 340,000 accounts. It is built and operated by Media Beef, which has delivered commuter technology for the Washington DC region since 2013.
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See what the platform does
We will show you the live admin portal and the live apps, not a slide.
Since 2013
Continuous commuter technology delivery for the Washington DC region's Commuter Connections program.
340,000+ accounts
Live production commuter database, not a pilot dataset.
iOS and Android
Native commuter apps in both app stores, used on real commutes every workday.
Zero re-registration
Accounts, employer records, trip history, and reward balances have been carried onto this platform from prior systems without asking commuters to sign up again.
Platform
Everything a regional commuter program runs on, in one system.
Commuter programs are commonly assembled from several separate tools, with the data reconciled by hand at reporting time. UpCommute was built the other way around. Everything below is built and running today, either in general release or in supervised client beta. We will tell you which is which on the call. Nothing on this page is a roadmap item.
Privacy-protected match results and messaging
Match results show a first name, last initial, and city. No contact details until the commuter chooses to share them. Matched commuters talk through an in-platform Message Center, so nobody hands out a phone number to start a conversation.
Multimodal trip planning
Drive, bike, and transit routing with depart-at and arrive-by options, built on current mapping and transit directions data.
Trip logging, including GPS verification
Log any mode, including telework, as one-time or regular trips. GPS-verified logging tracks the trip and stops automatically at the destination; verification is commuter-initiated, never always-on background tracking. Every commuter sees lifetime miles saved and CO2 reduced.
Rewards and recognition
A tiered rewards program with a running point balance, in-app redemption, and full transaction history. Milestone badges post to the commuter profile automatically.
Challenges and leaderboards
Run organization-level and individual challenge campaigns with participation rankings. Per-day and per-period logging caps keep the scoring honest.
Guaranteed Ride Home
A working GRH engine with request intake, administrator review, and program notifications, operating in production since 2013.
Surveys and data collection
A survey engine for recurring commuter surveys, with administrator-side setup, response management, and data export.
Admin portal, employer tools, and reporting
One portal for commuters, employers, surveys, and reporting, with role-based scoping so each admin sees only their jurisdiction, employer set, or program. Standard reports export to spreadsheet; large pulls run as background jobs.
Built for agencies
Your brand. Your data. Your program's name on it.
UpCommute is one platform that stands up separate, branded deployments for separate client programs. The engineering does not get rebuilt for each agency. The brand, the content, and the program rules do.
Branding
Your brand, your subdomain
Your program launches at yourprogram.upcommute.com or on a domain you own. Per-client design tokens drive colors, logo, and program language across the web application, the admin portal, and program email. Commuters see your program, not ours.
Architecture
One codebase, deployed separately per program
Each client program runs as its own deployment with its own database, on one shared codebase that is in production today for a public agency program. New programs inherit every fix and feature already accumulated, and a small regional agency gets the same engine as a large one.
Infrastructure
Cloud infrastructure
Managed cloud hosting, a content delivery network, and a managed relational database with automated backups. No on-premise hardware for the agency to host or patch. Capacity scales with the program.
Security
Security posture
Token-based authentication, a web application firewall, and data encrypted in transit and at rest. Role-based permissions scope what each administrator sees. Commuter privacy is enforced in the product itself: anonymized match results by default, commuter-initiated GPS verification.
Migration
Data migration
We have imported commuter accounts, employer records, trip history, and reward point balances from prior TDM platforms into this platform. Commuters keep their accounts and their points. They do not get an email asking them to register again.
The method is plain: map the source export field by field, load into staging, reconcile counts and balance totals against source-of-truth reports, and repeat until it ties out twice in a row. Only then does cutover happen.
Admin portal
The admin experience
One application instead of five: commuter records, employer directory, surveys, program data, and reporting in a single portal, with permissions scoped per administrator. Large data pulls run in the background.
Who builds this
Built by the people who run commuter programs, not just the people who host them.
2005
Media Beef founded: creative, marketing, and engineering under one roof.
Since Aug 2013
Continuous commuter technology delivery for the Washington DC metropolitan region.
2025 and 2026
Back-to-back ACT national awards for programs Media Beef supports.
UpCommute is built and operated by Media Beef.
We are the marketing agency of record for commuter programs and the software team that builds the commuter technology, under one roof. Most firms in TDM do one or the other. That matters on a launch: the people writing the outreach campaign and the people writing the redemption logic report to the same project lead.
Media Beef has delivered commuter technology continuously for the Washington DC metropolitan region since August 2013, including GPS-verified multimodal trip logging, a real-time carpool matching app, and the commuter rewards platform that UpCommute grew out of.
The work has been recognized nationally. Programs Media Beef supports won the 2025 ACT TDM Industry Impact Award and the 2026 ACT National Award for Outstanding TDM Strategy, back to back. Media Beef has also won multiple American Advertising Awards first-place honors for integrated public service campaigns between 2016 and 2022, and our founder has presented at the ACT International Conference in 2017 and 2021, returning in 2026.
Under one roof: software engineering, database and API development, mobile app development, brand and creative, paid digital advertising, organic social, email marketing, and in-house video production, including an FAA-licensed drone operator and Google Ads and Analytics certified staff.
The agency side of the house, the campaigns, the creative work, and the full client list, lives at mediabeef.com.
The record
Programs we run, and what runs on them.
Named programs, with our actual scope of work on each and the figures the programs have published.
Commuter Connections, Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
Continuous commuter technology delivery since August 2013 for a program network of 25 transportation organizations across DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The GPS-verified multimodal trip logging app, the real-time carpool matching app, the SchoolPool ridesharing app, and the commuter rewards program all run here. This is the live production deployment of the UpCommute platform.
Results the program has published in its FY2027 Work Program, from the regional TDM evaluation covering July 2021 to June 2023: 119,500 daily vehicle trips reduced, 2,168,000 vehicle miles of travel reduced each day, 93,000 gallons of fuel saved per day, 2,883 commuter hours of traffic delay avoided daily, and $519,800 in commuter cost savings every day. The CommuterCash rewards app launched region-wide in January 2025 and served as the primary trip-tracking vehicle for the goDMV Commuter Competition.
IE Commuter, Riverside County Transportation Commission and San Bernardino County Transportation Authority
Lead marketing agency since 2015, plus the survey and travel-data tooling behind the program's regulatory reporting. Results the program has posted: 8.6 million vehicle miles reduced, 7.5 percent vanpool growth, and more than 1,000 new incentive participants in the 2025 ACT TDM Industry Impact Award citation. Rideshare Week pledge participation grew from 4,249 in FY16 to 8,349 in FY20, a 96 percent increase over five years with no budget increase (WSP-reported). Rideshare Week 2023 alone reduced an estimated 32,507 drive-alone trips and 660,357 pounds of emissions. The program created 11,596 new commuter accounts in FY2023-24, 29 percent over target.
Experience Metrolink, Southern California regional rail
Commuter incentive program support. All-time results through September 2025: 129,586 vehicle trips reduced, 7.18 million vehicle miles reduced, and 7,765 tons of greenhouse gas reduced.
Bay Area SB1339 employer commuter-benefits survey platform (2013 to 2023)
Media Beef designed, built, and operated the regulatory employer survey platform for the San Francisco Bay Area program from its 2013 launch through 2023, including account prequalification, structured questionnaires, annual re-verification with automated reminders, an administrator review console, and custom report exports.
Program outcome figures belong to the programs and the agencies that run them, and are cited with the program and period they come from.
Tell us about your program.
If you are evaluating a platform, the fastest useful hour is a walkthrough of the live system with your own program's requirements in front of us. We will show you the admin portal, the commuter apps, and the reports. We will tell you plainly what is live, what is in development, and what we would have to build for you.
Start a conversationProcurement teams: capability detail, migration methodology, accessibility documentation, and references are available on request.