Traveline has appointed Passenger to produce its next generation of digital services, including its journey-planning app and website.
The contract will also see the redevelopment of the PlusBus website ahead of national roll-out of the scheme’s e-ticket availability.
Traveline is a not-for-profit company, formed from a partnership of transport operators, local authorities and passenger groups, which produces five million results monthly for multi-modal journey planning across bus, coach, rail, ferry and light rail.
Promised as part of the new traveline.info website and app are new features covering bus fares, PlusBus information, real-time bus locations, accessibility information and service updates.
Additional information on vehicle branding, onboard WiFi, and USB charging availability will also be made available.
The website redevelopment will complement the long-awaited digitalisation of PlusBus last year.
PlusBus, which allows train passengers to add on a through-journey for local buses, rail and tram in one transaction, had previously only been available in paper format, but can now also be included as an e-ticket in limited trial locations.
Julie Gray, CEO at Traveline, says: “We are a small operational team with excellent technical and project management knowledge and experience.
“We have close working relationships with all our suppliers, where problem solving and developing new solutions and ideas are often collaborative.
“Communication and collaboration are key to our success, and Passenger is well respected for its emphasis on this approach.
“We’re excited to get under way with the team, and to leverage its successful platform technology to deliver the next generation of Traveline for our stakeholders.”
Traveline Data, which holds national open data for public transport, the NextBuses API and the National Operator Database, will also be revamped.
Tom Quay, CEO at Passenger, adds: “Traveline is an organisation we’ve admired for a long time.
“We’re delighted to be working with the team to realise further our shared visions for increased adoption of public transport.
“Traveline will benefit from a decade of specialist public transport software and customer experience expertise.
“The work will see Passenger move deeper into multi-modal transport information delivery, building on our deep expertise in bus.
“This announcement is exciting news for existing Passenger clients, too, as we will explore opportunities to amplify the work they are already doing on our platform by bringing their updates to more people through Traveline. We’re excited to get started!”
