Ticketer
Unlock the Potential of Transport Data
This article first appeared in the Bus-News magazine Issue 1, October 2021
“The transport sector creates incredible amounts of data, but as an industry we’re not making the most of it. Through analytics and insights, data can help us improve decision making and operational efficiencies, as well as provide better value for customers,” says Andy Monshaw, Ticketer Group CEO.
The transport sector produces a phenomenal amount of data and yet uses so little of it to its own advantage – and to that of its customers.
If you look at operators alone, there’s so much information to work with. They can record the number of tickets sold, the amount of people on a bus at any given time and the condition of vehicles, to name but a few.
The transport industry could, and should, be doing so much more with this information. Just think about the last 18 months. During the pandemic, authorities allocated a lot of money to public transport to ensure that essential workers could move about. However, they had to do this with only a sliver of the information needed to make the most effective decisions.
The raw data the industry is sitting on can be analysed and turned into valuable insights to help it deliver better value for customers, improve operational efficiency and support better decision making.
Clearly there’s a gap to be closed, but gradual change is happening as operators and authorities come to understand the value this data holds.
The Need to Innovate
We need to innovate to stay relevant, and data is key to driving the kinds of bus services passengers’ desire. Passengers want to be well informed and in control of their entire journey – from door to door – and a wide range of technology solutions are starting to revolutionise the operation of buses in ways that responds to these customer needs.
Many trends were accelerated due to the pandemic, for example touch free travel through technologies such as contactless payments and tap on/tap off readers. The benefit of the latter has been that operators and authorities can now see passengers’ exact journeys and travel patterns, which can help improve capacity management, and planning more efficient and optimal routes.
