We recently caught up with Adam Toone, our newly appointed Chief Commercial and Operations Officer, to discuss his 2025 priorities, plans for creating value and how Ticketer is supporting customers through industry changes.
Adam, a big welcome from everyone here at Ticketer! For those who haven’t crossed paths with you yet in the industry, could you tell us about your background?
Thank you, it’s great to be here! I’ve had the opportunity to work across various industries, from drinks to snacks, even to pet food. However, I luckily found my way into – and subsequent passion for – the public transport sector and have since gained over seven years’ experience in leadership roles at Arriva and more recently UrbanThings.
As Digital Director at Arriva, I led initiatives such as the launch of Arriva Click across multiple UK locations and the rollout of Optibus in Arriva Regions and Arriva London, focusing on both on-bus technology and data-driven solutions. During this time, I collaborated closely with Ticketer, and particularly Kelly, Brad and Jason, as a customer, which gave me valuable insights into Ticketer’s operations, people and culture.
As CEO at UrbanThings, I led the development of digital solutions for the public transport industry, again partnering with Ticketer and working with many of our customers. Given my previous close ties with the team as well as the fact I have many existing relationships with our customers, I feel like I’m starting off in my new role with a strong footing which is great.
With that in mind, what unique perspective do you think you can bring to your role?
I’ve experienced first-hand the strengths and value Ticketer can offer from a customer’s perspective, and this unique position has also given me an insight into where we can enhance our solutions, partnership offerings and operational processes.
From a technology partner standpoint, I’ve seen how innovation can drive real change in the industry. My focus is to keep Ticketer a customer-first organisation – ensuring we’re delivering forward-thinking solutions that are tailored to our users’ needs and continuously evolving to deliver real, lasting impact.
What will be your key priorities moving into your new role?
Firstly, I can’t wait to get out there and meet our customers, something that I’ve already begun doing. Tied into that is ensuring we’re meeting regularly to listen and learn from them. Understanding their challenges, goals and how they operate is fundamental to ensuring we continue to deliver real value. The industry doesn’t stand still, and neither should we.
I also want to ensure that moving forward our customers have the right resources for them to get the best possible value from the Ticketer system. Our solution comes with a lot of functionality that’s constantly receiving updates and new releases. Customers don’t always have the time to meet with myself and the Customer Success Directors to be taken through this, so I want to ensure we’re creating the right resources for the system to continuously add value. Building up this catalogue of resources – be they product videos, or ‘How To’ guides – may take some time, but I’m really ambitious and want 2025 to be the year we start delivering this.
You’ve mentioned the importance of creating forward-thinking, customer-centric solutions, can you tell us more about what’s coming up in 2025?
A key focus for us is ensuring authorities and operators have access to clear, actionable data. This is why we’ve continually enhanced the Ticketer Insights Hub since its launch and are releasing the Schedule Adherence dashboard later this year.
I acted as a consultant in a lot of the early calls on how the Insights Hub needed to work whilst at Arriva, and from the offset Ticketer was clear that the data visualisation, easy access to that data and the overall user experience had to be prioritised for customers. If I have to click 20 buttons to get my data or if my data is displayed unclearly, then I’m not going to use the solution. I’m pleased to say that I know the Schedule Adherence dashboard will provide very easy access to very clear insights, which ultimately is going to create a lot of value for customers once released.
Secondly, whether you’re for it or against it, there’s lots of change happening in the industry which means another key area for us is supporting authorities and operators through franchising. We recognise that not all future franchising regions will look the same – they won’t have the same requirements, same output or even the same budget, so there’s no one-size-fits-all model for this. We’re therefore ensuring that we support the industry on this throughout the year, and when the regions are ready will flex and adapt our tried-and-tested solution as needed to suit the needs of both franchising authorities and their participating operations.
We’ll also be releasing our new voice messaging solution this year, which will allow two-way communication between controllers and their drivers via our TK300’s inbuilt Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. A lot of our customers have got very historic radio technology on their buses which either is on the cusp of needing replacement, already needs replacement and has been switched off as it no longer works or simply doesn’t do what they need it to anymore. You’ve then also got customers who haven’t purchased that radio functionality, either due to the cost or staff capacity.
After listening to this feedback, we’ve responded by bringing voice messaging functionality into our TK300 by leveraging the driver console, microphone and speakers. It will allow more targeted voice broadcasts to specific drivers, depots or services and drivers will also be able to place calls in return to allow two-way communication. It also won’t be subject to short-range radio frequencies and will be less expensive to deploy and run given there’s no additional hardware, costly frequency licenses or need for a control room that comes with a radio. We’re really excited about launching this as it’s going to bring a lot of value to our customers.
What does success in your first year as Chief Commercial & Operations Officer look like?
Success for myself and the team is making a tangible contribution to the transport industry’s evolution. That means helping operators and authorities harness technology to deliver more efficient, customer-centric services.
It’s easy to talk about big ambitions, but we’re focused on drilling that down and setting clear, achievable milestones. Whether it’s improving customer engagement, refining our product offerings or helping authorities and operators transition into new models seamlessly, we want to ensure that by the end of 2025 we can look back and say we’ve truly supported and positively impacted our customers and the industry as a whole.
Any final thoughts as you embark on this new journey with us?
I’m incredibly excited for what’s ahead. Ticketer is well-positioned to help operators and local authorities navigate the changes happening in public transport. Partnerships are key – whether it’s working with customers, suppliers, or government bodies, we see immense opportunity in shaping the future together.
We’re ready for 2025 and beyond, and I look forward to making a difference alongside our customers and the Ticketer team.
If you’ve got any questions on the topics mentioned above, please reach out to your Customer Success Director if you’re a customer or email us at info@ticketer.co.uk.