Bus Ticketing System
Fare Payments Platform for Bus Agencies of All SizesTraditional fare collection for bus services around the globe has involved issuing paper tickets in exchange for cash and expensive fare boxes in order to turn the bus into a shop when passengers get onboard.
This process has led to innovative bus operators and agencies looking for better ways of running their fare collection systems in order to reduce the amount of time buses are stationary at each bus stop (dwell times), reduce the cost of collecting and processing cash and providing a more convenient and seamless way for passengers to board and travel.
At Masabi we supplying fare collection services to over 60 bus agencies around the globe, from operators with a few buses to large cities.
66% Mobile Ticketing Adoption
Bustang, Colorado, USA
Fare Payments Platform for Bus Agencies of All Sizes
Masabi’s Justride is the leading Fare Payments platform for public transport and is the leading provider of Mobile Ticketing for bus services around the globe. It’s one platform configured in different ways for all our agency partners, with regular feature updates everyone benefits from. Transit agencies and bus operators can sign up to mobile ticketing services, enable Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and deploy an account-based system allowing passengers to simply tap a contactless bank card, mobile device and smartcard to travel, without needing to buy a ticket or understand fares.
In the past, bus agencies and operators either gave you old fashioned paper tickets, magnetic tickets or smartcards. This meant that they needed complex infrastructure to facilitate the payment and validate the ticket, as well as to distribute the pieces of plastic or paper that allowed riders to travel. The future of ticketing turns this approach around and tries to remove both expensive single purpose infrastructure and the need to issue a piece of paper or plastic, saving agencies money. This is the approach we call BYOT (Bring Your Own Ticket).
Masabi’s 7 step ‘Mobile First’ approach to fare collection moves agencies to a BYOT set up, enabling organisations to save money and revolutionise the passenger experience. The process starts with mobile ticketing, which can be live in a few weeks, and progresses to Account Based Ticketing using a mobile phone, smartcard or contactless bank card and enabling Mobility as a Service.
55% of Users Ride the Bus More Frequently Since Using Justride
National Express Bus, Birmingham, UK
Mobile Ticketing Success Factors for Bus Operators
A branded application is crucial in order to ensure agencies have an online presence and can use the application to enable Account Based Ticketing and Mobility as a Service. A branded application gives agencies a significant advantage as adoption rates are much higher as there is instant trust with the brand.
Tickets have to be available to passengers offline. If the ticketing provider selected does not offer offline ticket activation users will stop using the service and adoption will suffer (and customer service complaints will be high).
At Masabi mobile is the first step on the road to delivering full fare collection following our BYOT philosophy – reducing the cost of fare collection for agencies. We are able to enable validation, account-based fares and MaaS, revolutionising fare collection and the rider experience.
National Express Ticketing Deployment
National Express were able to attract more passengers to take the bus and help unlock access to education and reduce deprivation, winning a Transport Ticketing Global 2018 award in the process. This case study looks at why National Express West Midlands chose mobile ticketing to improve the rider experience and help solve the issues they were having with issuing student passes. It also explores the results from a passenger survey about their experience with the mobile ticketing deployment. The National Express West Midlands App has now sold well over one million tickets with 55% using the bus more since using the mobile channel.
Mobile Tickets That Only Work When Online Infuriate Passengers and Reduce Uptake.
Bad coverage has always been the number one complaint of mobile phone users everywhere, and despite the continued evolution to 4G and soon 5G networks, the problem is not going away. Networks are getting more bandwidth but coverage still isn’t universal.
How the Mobile Phone is Cutting Bus Dwell Times in Half
An important factor has emerged as a major driver for the adoption of mobile ticketing for busses: congestion.
In the report The Impact of Congestion on Bus Passengers for bus industry campaign group Greener Journeys, Professor David Begg identified a link dating back to the 1960s between increasing journey times and declining patronage.
Among his recommendations to reverse this trend was to speed up the adoption of smart ticketing, which has a demonstrable effect in reducing dwell times at bus stops, speeding up overall journey times.