Masabi: bespoke tech is holding transit agencies back

Sixty per cent of transit agencies looking to use account-based ticketing are struggling with bespoke technology which is slow to deploy and costly to maintain, claims Masabi. Masabi CEO Brian Zanghi says agencies have been “denied access” to systems that keep pace with technology in a cost-effective way and have had to invest in bespoke automatic fare collection (AFC) systems. “This has led to limited innovation with some agencies able to purchase the latest systems but leaving many underserved and left
September 30, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

Sixty per cent of transit agencies looking to use account-based ticketing are struggling with bespoke technology which is slow to deploy and costly to maintain, claims 6870 Masabi.

Masabi CEO Brian Zanghi says agencies have been “denied access” to systems that keep pace with technology in a cost-effective way and have had to invest in bespoke automatic fare collection (AFC) systems.

“This has led to limited innovation with some agencies able to purchase the latest systems but leaving many underserved and left with systems that are outdated,” he continues. “This isn’t fair to passengers; public transit riders and agencies deserve better.”

Masabi %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external surveyed false https://info.masabi.com/hubfs/A%20Guide%20to%20Fare%20Payments-as-a-Service%20for%20Public%20Transit-V3-Web.pdf false false%> more than 60 transit agencies in North America, investigating their core AFC system and the impact this technology is having on their ability to work with new solutions.

The study - Transit Agency Research Report: The State of Fare Collection - reveals that 43% of agencies have been operating their core AFC systems for more than a decade.

Six out of 10 agencies stated that adding new features to their system was either ‘hard’ or ‘very hard’ with updates occasionally or hardly ever happening.

Other findings show that 41% of agencies are paying more than 10% of their revenue to run their AFC system while nearly a quarter are looking into deploying account-based Mobility as a Service solutions.

Masabi recommends Fare Payment as a Service (FPaaS) as a better alternative because it allows public transit operators to pay for services on a subscription basis instead of signing up to a fare payments platform. This enables agencies to quickly deliver ‘tap and ride’ solutions, the company adds.

Aside from the report, Masabi has %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external published false https://info.masabi.com/hubfs/A%20Guide%20to%20Fare%20Payments-as-a-Service%20for%20Public%20Transit-V3-Web.pdf false false%> an ebook called A Guide to Fare Payments-as-a Service to help transit agencies benefit from the FPaaS model.

Related Content

  • November 22, 2018
    Lime launches free-floating car-share service in Seattle
    Bike-share and electric scooter company Lime has launched a ‘free-floating’ car-share service in Seattle and intends to make 1,500 vehicles available in early 2019. Bloomberg says the company has deployed 50 Lime-branded vehicles and intends to increase this number to 500 by the end of the year. Users can unlock a LimePod vehicle, a customised two-door Fiat 500, via the company’s app for $1 and are charged 40 cents per minute while driving. Toby Sun, Lime’s chief executive officer, says the company is a
    Read More
  • September 11, 2019
    Washington Post game highlights AV flaws
    Mind the kangaroos! That is among the more surprising suggestions in a new entertainment which purports to illustrate the pitfalls of autonomous vehicles (AVs). US media giant The Washington Post has created a short interactive game which “shows readers how autonomous cars function and breaks down the technology to educate viewers about their limitations and challenges”. These include sensor blind spots and confusion over what other road users are about to do. The five-minute game takes the form of a jou
    Read More
  • December 21, 2018
    USDoT calls for comment on V2X integration
    The US Department of Transportation (USDoT) is seeking public comment on how Vehicle to Everything (V2X) technology should be integrated into the transport environment. The organisation says it intends to maintain the priority use of 5.9Ghz spectrum for transportation safety communications. It points out that the automotive industry and local authorities “are already deploying V2X technology and actively utilising all seven channels of the 5.9 GHz band” and says that technology such as Cellular-V2X (C-V2
    Read More
  • February 14, 2019
    Ride-hailing and taxi drivers could face tougher criminal checks in England
    Drivers who ply their trade on apps such as Uber could be under greater scrutiny as part of proposals being put forward by the UK government. The potential risk to passengers from the explosion of ride-hailing apps, as private-hire drivers are perceived to receive less thorough vetting – for example, to flag up past convictions – has long been argued. Incidents such as the murders of passengers by a Didi driver in China heightened such concerns - although critics point out that a US Uber driver who ad
    Read More

Highlighted Content