Hot on the heels of their sizzling TV debut on Sky TV’s “Digital Transformation: The Shape of Things to Come”, we caught up with the stars of the show.
Here’s a behind the scenes exclusive on what they were asked, that you didn’t get to see on screen.
HOW DOES TICKETER KEEP INVENTING?
John Clarfelt, Ticketer Founder: I’ll let you in on a secret – it’s actually very exciting! To come up with new ideas we need to know what our customer base needs. Firstly, we talk to operators to understand their pain points and what would be their future requirements, we then try and develop those and deploy them across the industry as a whole. Secondly, we just put ourselves in the position of the passenger and what we would like to see when we’re travelling on public transport.
The great news is that we thrive on ideas and can often develop them quickly. The key for us is to create new and innovative solutions that we can offer to all our operators, without limitation. What we’re about is delivering a better solution for the passenger, because if we make it good for the passenger, it’s good for the operator.
WHAT’S THE NEXT WATERSHED IN TICKETING FOR OPERATORS?
Jason Mann, Head of Product: There are lots of really exciting new opportunities coming for public transport operators. Lately, we’ve been expanding our deployment of Tap Out Readers – tapping in and tapping out is almost like the new watershed in ticketing for bus operators. This moves passengers from a prepaid model where they buy the ticket, either in advance or as they board the bus, into paying after they’ve travelled. Depending on how much and where the passengers travelled, you can give them far better pricing options.
The benefit is that the passenger doesn’t have to think about “what am I going to do today?” and then buy the best ticket or know that they bought a ticket which wasn’t used to its full potential. That is one of the key things that’s happening in the industry at the moment and it’s something that I think will change how people use and perceive bus services.
WHAT HAS AMAZED YOU ABOUT TICKETER SINCE YOU JOINED?
Andy Monshaw, Group CEO: I’ve been here for about a year and a half, but the customer set, our customer relationships and the innovative and forward-thinking technology is something that I’ve never seen before. Our wonderful Founder, John, created close–knit relationships with hundreds and hundreds of operators around the UK. Really listening to them and then bringing in new technology which in the start solved a very specific problem, and now helps solve a tremendous number of problems around the industry. Since Ticketer started, there’s been this evolutionary cycle of understanding what the customers need and then bringing those solutions to market.
Another thing that’s amazed me about Ticketer is the approach taken to unlock opportunities for operators. Big data is very commonly used across many industries, but it’s really under levered in public transport. There is a very small subsection of data available to operators today and there’s a lot of technical reasons for that which we are currently helping to address. Tomorrow, you will be able to see all your historical data, and more importantly, there’ll be a set of very sophisticated business analytics in front of it. We will help provide the answers to many, many of the questions we’ve had over the years and will serve them up to you in a very simple way for you to consume. Watch this space!
HOW CAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT OPERATORS USE TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES?
Brad Todd, Director of Product Strategy and Customer Success: I think one of the biggest improvements where operators can get efficiency from technology is in removing the dwell time when a bus is parked at a bus stop and waiting for passengers to get on and off. If the bus is not moving, then it’s not moving passengers which is obviously not an efficient use of the asset. By making it possible to do smart ticketing, including the acceptance of contactless cards with Tap On / Tap Off , we enable passengers to purchase as they go, and not having to choose a ticket type before they travel. This makes a huge difference in reducing the waiting time for drivers at the bus stop as passengers get on or off the bus. It allows operators to run the services more efficiently, with better time keeping and helps passengers get to their destination on time. It’s probably one of the biggest operational improvements that we’ve allowed through technology.
WANT TO WATCH?
Click below to watch our appearance on Sky’s ‘Digital Transformation: The Shape of Things to Come.’
