Smart solutions are so vital to our routine activity that everyone is always looking for new apps and tools to make their lives easier and that includes the public transportation. Just getting from point A to point B it’s not enough anymore.

People want to move faster in a secure, comfortable and environmentally friendly way. They must have different ride options for least cost, minimal connections and eliminate the waiting time and walking distance between them. They don’t want to carry bills and coins (the exact amount), or a plastic card that it’s better not to lose it. They want to avoid standing in line to purchase a ticket. They claim for an efficient system to fit trip preferences and reduce boarding time.

Mobile ticketing solutions are providing more effective and convenient ways to simplify the transit ridership experience. This trend enables riders to plan a travel, to personalize journeys, and pay for their transit tickets using their smartphones.

Furthermore, there’s many benefits to transit agencies either. A complete Mobility as a Service app can increases the customer’s experience and ridership; gives more data to know where customers starts or ends trips and which destinations are popular along various routes; provides a unified platform that can expand to new mobility solutions; and can still be an alternate source of revenue.

In 2019, ZED Digital launched the first Mobility as a Service app for public transit riders, introducing Internet of Things-based fare validation equipment on North American public transit buses. One of the major advantages of Bluetooth sensors is that they are cheap and easy to install.

During the pilot study of this device conducted in Zanesville, OH and Louisville, KY last year, there has been a 400% increase in transit tickets sold within the app in just the first month. The ZED IoT fare validator sensors also significantly speed up the onboarding process.

Although it is pretty effortless to establish these solutions in terms of user adoption and deployment, mobile ticket systems in the public transport sector don’t have yet the same high demand trailed by airlines or event ticketing.

Especially with the advent of on-demand real time transportation services such as Uber and Lyft, transit agencies need urgently to change their strategic direction to transition from being transit operators to Integrated Mobility Managers, delivering mobility services including all public and private transportation providers within their region and responding the riders satisfaction and willingness to explore something new and effective.

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