By Richard Tackett
For more than a decade, TransitCheck has been reshaping how public transit agencies approach inspections, safety, and maintenance. Built by Revecorp, an engineering and software development company founded by Dr. Michael St. Denis, TransitCheck evolved from work in emissions and safety testing into a digital inspection (DVIR) platform now used by agencies across the United States. What began as a solution for a single customer has become a tool trusted for millions of inspections each year.
“Through doing emissions testing, we got into doing safety testing and that’s where the product TransitCheck came from,” said Michael St. Denis, founder of Revecorp. “One of our customers wanted to automate safety testing on buses and that product’s a little over 10 years old now helping transit agencies across the US.”
Brian Yurkiw, who leads business development, underscored the company’s reach: “We are a small minority, woman-owned business in Rocklin, California. But like Michael said, we’ve been doing this for 10 years.”
Turning Paper into Actionable Data
At its core, TransitCheck replaces the traditional paper-based pre-trip and post-trip inspection process with a cloud-connected, tablet-driven system. This digitization eliminates the inefficiencies of paper logs and transforms inspection results into actionable intelligence.
“The advantage to doing inspections digitally is that instead of it all going into a book that no one ever looks at again, we take the data and turn it into something that’s actionable,” St. Denis said. “I know which inspection item fails all the time. Or I know if someone never gets out of the bus and never walks around and isn’t doing the right thing. I know if it takes them 40 minutes, maybe they need retraining”. Agencies can move to predictive maintenance, as opposed to preventative maintenance, while improving safety and the number of vehicles available to dispatch, reducing the need for as many costly spare vehicles.
Building Communication Between Drivers and Maintenance
TransitCheck also strengthens relationships within transit operations. By digitizing inspection reports and tying them to maintenance workflows, the platform helps bridge the communication gap between drivers and technicians.
“When they fix driver’s complaints, there is a record of what was repaired and that record actually goes back to the driver who failed it,” St. Denis said. “So, if I said the tire looks like it’s got low air, the next time the driver inspects the tire, they actually get feedback to know someone’s listening to them and the situation was addressed.”
The result, St. Denis added, is often a noticeable cultural shift.
“We actually start seeing comments back and forth between the drivers and the shops,” he said. “Drivers start figuring out that they are actually being listened to and that helps a lot.”
Supporting Agencies of All Sizes and Organization
TransitCheck is designed to fit diverse operational models. Some agencies manage their own maintenance shops while others rely on third-party contractors. TransitCheck can support both.
“Victor Valley Transit does a really good job of using the data that they see to manage their contractor,” St. Denis said. “They actually have limits in their performance standards such as the percent of the vehicles that can be out of service waiting on repair at any time or face repercussions. And that keeps their contractor honest.”
Yurkiw said that TransitCheck’s distribution model also serves different needs.
“We contract directly with agencies in some cases,” he said. “In other cases, we have people who distribute our software. So GMV, Passio, Connexionz, Faster Asset Solutions and other companies sell software, and the customer will also want to automate inspections, so they’ve integrated our software together with their offering to the agency.”
This integration ensures that operators see one seamless experience.
“What everyone wants is one experience,” St. Denis said. “They don’t want five pieces of software they have to log into and work with. So, we work with these companies to make sure the entire solution is seamless to the drivers and the agency.”
Fast Onboarding and Simple Pricing
One of TransitCheck’s strengths is its straightforward implementation. Agencies can move from paper to full digital inspections in about a week.
“Because it’s in the cloud, we can set it up very quickly,” St. Denis said. “We can get them up and running from their paper form, if they already have tablets, to operational in about a week.”
Customers also appreciate the clarity of our business model.
“We are all about keeping it simple. So, it’s a price per vehicle per month and everything is included in that,” St. Denis said. “Agencies, need cost predictability in their budgeting, so TransitCheck is this much per month and that’s it.’”
Continuous Improvement
Because TransitCheck operates a single unified code base, customer-driven enhancements benefit the entire user base at once.
“We operate TransitCheck, we built the system, it’s our code, it’s residing in California,” Yurkiw said “We operate one code set. So, if a customer gives us an idea and we think that idea has merit, we implement that idea, and then everybody gets it. Yeah, it’s not as if individual customers sign a maintenance contract, and then when they ask for something and start billing. It doesn’t work that way. Everybody sees the new features as we implement them.”
That approach has resulted in quick wins for customers.
“We had a customer, the University of Georgia, and they were out in the early morning doing their inspection with their tablet and their flashlight,” St. Denis said. “Our customer called us, and he said, ‘Why do I have a flashlight and a tablet that has a light on it?’ Overnight we coded up being able to turn on the light on the tablet, we put a button on the App. The user who had the idea logged in the next day and there was an arrow pointing at it. And then he used it, he’s like, ‘This is great’”. After he tested it, we pushed it out to all our customers.
Making Inspections Easy for Drivers
TransitCheck’s design philosophy ensures drivers can perform inspections without needing specialized technical knowledge. Driver turnover is an issue for all agencies, so reducing the training burden for drivers is critical. For this reason, we recommend agencies configure inspections in such a way that the driver documents their observations rather than forcing the driver to make pass/fail decisions. With this approach, driver training is reduced. All the driver has to do is document what they see. Maintenance gets to decide what is passing or failing.
Customers also want to be able to control their own inspections.
“As Michael mentioned, during the ramp up, we configure the customer’s inspections first, and then we teach them how to do it themselves,” Yurkiw said. “Then they can configure an inspection that’s perfect for the specific thing they’re inspecting.”
A Simple Philosophy
For TransitCheck, success lies in making inspections both easier for drivers and more valuable for agencies.
“We believe, we always say, ‘If it doesn’t pay for itself, you shouldn’t be using it,’” St. Denis said. “It should save you time, it should reduce things going wrong, it should reduce your insurance costs, it should reduce a lot of things.”
By lowering barriers to adoption, integrating with existing systems, and delivering predictable returns, TransitCheck continues to expand its role as a vital cost saving tool in modern fleet management. With TransitCheck, having quality, thorough inspections provides maintenance with real time vehicle defect reporting that is essential to a well maintained and safer vehicle.