# David Block-Schachter

> David Block-Schachter is the Chief Business Officer at Transit, the multimodal trip-planning and fare-payment app used in cities across North America and Europe. A car-free MIT transportation PhD who started his career designing websites for American Express and IBM, he co-founded the microtransit startup Bridj, ran customer technology as CTO of the MBTA, and now helps transit agencies turn rider data into faster buses and simpler fares. His through-line: use technology and data to make public transit work better for everyone.

- **Role:** Chief Business Officer at Transit
- **Organizations:** Transit, Bridj, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), MIT Transit Research Program
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.A., Urban Studies, Columbia University, Master of Science in Transportation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Master of City Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D. in Transportation (Dissertation: Hysteresis and Urban Rail), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- **Known for:** Conceived and directed the first-in-the-nation public-private partnership for automated fare collection at the MBTA (an account-based, open-payments system with privacy-by-design), Recruited and retained 40+ engineers, designers, and product managers inside a public transit agency, recruiting partly via a startup job board, Co-founded Bridj, described as the first venture-capital-backed mass transit startup since the original electric railway companies

## Career timeline

- **2000** — Web Producer at Internet Appliance Network, a New York B2B company
- **2000-2004** — Senior Producer / Information Architect at Sharpe Partners, building the agency's information architecture practice
- **2004-2005** — Interaction Designer at R/GA, writing UI standards for IBM and working with Sharp and Nestle Purina
- **2005-2006** — Lead Interaction Designer at Digitas, leading projects for American Express card divisions
- **2012-2014** — Research Associate at the MIT Transit Research Program, supervising graduate research embedded at the MBTA
- **2014** — Director of Research and Analysis at the MBTA (Jan-May)
- **2014-2016** — Co-founder, Chief Scientist and CTO at Bridj, building its proprietary vehicle routing system
- **2016-2019** — Chief Technology Officer at the MBTA, building a startup-like customer technology department
- **2019-present** — Joined Transit; rose to Chief Business Officer leading agency partnerships and research & analytics

## Achievements

- Conceived and directed the first-in-the-nation public-private partnership for automated fare collection at the MBTA (an account-based, open-payments system with privacy-by-design)
- Recruited and retained 40+ engineers, designers, and product managers inside a public transit agency, recruiting partly via a startup job board
- Co-founded Bridj, described as the first venture-capital-backed mass transit startup since the original electric railway companies
- Led design of Bridj's proprietary system for planning and routing mass transit vehicles based on aggregated user requests
- Improved MBTA bus prediction accuracy from roughly 75% to 84% and made real-time bus locations more reliable
- Brokered the first transit agency partnership with Transit App, ensuring full user data access while improving real-time information for riders - a model later widely replicated
- Reduced the MBTA fare-collection department budget by more than 20% while improving time-to-fix
- Earned a PhD, two master's degrees, and a bachelor's, and authored numerous peer-reviewed transportation research papers

## Latest updates

- **2024** — Continues as Chief Business Officer at Transit, leading agency partnerships and the research & analytics team, and speaking publicly on mobility-as-a-service, open payments, and rider-centered design (e.g. the Transit Voices and Masabi podcasts).

## Links

- Website: http://www.hiredbs.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamdbs

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/david-block-schachter
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-13