Whippet Bus and Ticketer

Background

Whippet Bus is Cambridge’s oldest operator with over 106 years of heritage. Originally a family-run business for 95 years, Whippet is now part of the Ascendal Group, a global transport company operating across multiple continents. Today, Whippet runs a combination of local bus routes in rural Cambridgeshire, a dedicated University of Cambridge service, and a fleet of express coaches.

As a forward-thinking operator, Whippet was looking for ways to improve the customer experience and drive operational efficiency, particularly regarding punctuality which was being negatively impacted by traffic congestion and long boarding times from passengers who needed driver assistance with purchasing the correct tickets for travel.

Whippet were additionally hoping to organically increase patronage of their services by removing barriers to travel such as passengers needing advance understanding of which tickets were required for travel. Having heard of successful Tap On / Tap Off (TOTO) deployments from other ALBUM operators, they too turned to Ticketer to implement their technology and help overcome these challenges through TOTO.

How we helped

With the support of Ticketer, Whippet was able to introduce TOTO payments across their network within just six weeks from initial conversations. The implementation process included:

• Configuring bus stops, fare zones and pricing structure
• Testing transactions to ensure accurate fare capping
• Running a targeted customer communication campaign to raise awareness of the new travel method
• Training drivers on the new system and customer support processes

The outcome