There are over 2m apps available on app stores, but do you have one? Passenger can help
The benefits of an app for a company are plentiful. They provide brand awareness, advertising, and easy access to tickets – which is essential considering the growing need to make public transport more simple and convenient.
An app can have it all: Real-time information, bus tracking and ticketing. With a society so fixated on technological advances designed to make one’s life easier, there has never been a better time for operators to invest in app technology.
Meet Passenger
Bournemouth-based tech firm Passenger, a subsidiary of We Are Base, has assisted the coach and bus industry by developing websites and apps for the past three years.
“We started as a software company 10 years ago,” says Tom Quay, CEO and founder. “Three years ago we became what we are now, with the launch of a new company called Passenger.”
In 2016, Passenger launched its first app on the platform with Bournemouth-based Yellow Buses. In the same year, it launched again with Nottingham City Transport.
Tom says: “Bournemouth and Nottingham were our first two partner companies. We then hit the road showing the product to whoever would open the door to us. We signed a contract with EYMS in December 2016 and launched with it four months later at the start of April 2017.
“We did the same with Blackpool Transport. So by that Christmas we had two new customers – it was all really exciting.”
Quick turnaround
Passenger’s core product on its mobile apps is ticketing alongside real-time information, creating that “everything-in-one-place experience”, and being able to roll the whole thing out and into customer’s hands in 12 weeks.
Passenger’s work with EYMS and Blackpool Transport is a prime example of this. The company deployed for both operators, side by side, within a span of 12 weeks.
However, it isn’t always simple. As Tom explains, during one Passenger deployment over the years, an operator didn’t have a real-time provider: “When you go ‘yes, we can put all of this stuff in’ – a real-time app with ticketing and the rest of it – you expect that they have the provision.
“We helped this operator procure a company to do that. Because it had new buses rolling out, they were keen on hitting the app deadline regardless. We helped get it there.”
Expansion
While carrying out the work for EYMS and Blackpool Transport, Passenger was also going through the acquisition of a software business in Brighton, which offered a content management system for bus companies to update their websites.
The person who ran that business was quite keen to get involved in a bigger outfit – but not too big, Tom says. “He approached us and asked if we would we be interested in taking this on. We did in April of that year.”
Since then Passenger has rolled into Cardiff, twice in Scotland and on the morning routeone visited (15 November), it had just launched in Ireland.
The latter was a new deployment for Go-Ahead Ireland, formerly Go-Ahead Dublin – Passenger’s very first overseas deployment.
The need for Passenger
Tom saw a gap in the market for Passenger after working with Yellow Buses, where he saw the need for a website, journey planner, and online top-up for smart cards.
“Nottingham City Transport rang one day and said, ‘we’ve seen the work you’ve done in Bournemouth – it looks really good and we’re looking for a company to do the same, would you be interested in coming up to have a chat?’ Of course, we said yes,” Tom explains. “It was at that point that we realised we had a product, seeing that the two operators’ requirements were so similar.”
Passenger is now one of the industry’s major app providers. The product has more money moving through it now than ever, so a lot of the work currently underway at the company is focused on infrastructure, making sure it is resilient as thousands of people are using it 24hrs a day. Tom says there are millions of pounds running through Passenger per operator.
As such, Passenger is investing “huge amounts” in scale, ensuring that the apps stay online and that the payment side of the solution remains as responsive as possible at all times.
Passenger for operators
Passenger works predominantly with major independents, including McGill’s Buses, Reading Buses, Cardiff Bus, and Yellow Buses, as well as Go-Ahead subsidiaries for the website side of its business.
Passenger does more than provide mobile apps and websites, however. Its range of services include (but is not limited to):
- Mobile apps
Delivering a mobile ticketing and RTPI app experience that’s tailored to day-to-day bus patrons
- Websites
Launching and managing operator websites and customer portals and plugging in the complex parts
- Kiosks
Using tablets to provide tourism information inside travel shops
- Display screens
A display board for on-site locations that shows real-time timetables and service updates
- Wearable apps (for watches such as Apple Watch)
The Passenger app experience in the palm (or wrist) of your hand
- Voice
Taking advantage of emerging voice technology such as Amazon Echo and Google Home.
Set for launch in January/February is what Passenger calls the Business Portal – currently being tested by one yet-to-be-named operator.
Business Portal allows companies to send tickets to their employees’ mobile phones with just a press of a button.
Says Tom: “Business Portal turns the mobile app technology into an instant distribution system, rather than a smart card being printed off in a depot and then having to be delivered to the customer. Business Portal is a digital – and therefore simplified – version of that.
“Our Business Portal uses that idea of being able to push tickets really quickly to a lot of people. It has many uses, including allowing the operator to sell tickets to businesses,” he adds.
“This system is a way for operators to look good to businesses and it also allows them to sell tickets in volume, which we think will be a huge enabler. There’s much more like this to come from Passenger, so watch this space for some exciting developments in the coming months.”
