In the transit industry, there is a definite need for more investment in fleet management and vehicle location information gathering, flexible ticketing in terms of fare models, and real-time passenger information. Today, it is much more important to know when the next bus or train will arrive—down to the minute—to allow passengers to optimize their timing compared to customer expectations 10 years ago.
Scheidt & Bachmann’s Fare Collection Systems division and IVU Traffic Technologies AG formed a sales partnership to offer complete systems, ranging from ticket sales and validation, access control, on-board computer, and control centers to dynamic information at bus stops and on mobile devices. This is based on integrated data and information management for their customers.
“We’re moving forward with FareGo which allows us to make bigger steps toward getting an account-based system out there,” said Eric Reese, Regional Manager, Scheidt & Bachmann.
“The market is going from a card-based system to an account-based system to allow for greater flexibility and better fare system management and reporting, for example. Plus, it gets into standards of openness for payments to bring in different mobile apps, card functions and medias, as well, for easier customer use,” Reese said.
The technology allows the partnership to present predictive real-time information to the clients so they can optimize their travel behavior, while at the same time making fare payment as easy as possible with whatever media the traveler has. “People love their phones, how do we allow them to use their phones to make public transportation easier? It’s about making customer interaction easier, more comfortable and more customizable,” said Reese.
Scheidt & Bachmann, along with IVU, are able to provide agencies with a greater wealth of data that they can use for better scheduling, fare management and price structuring, and understanding when and how its customers are using the system. The system provides reporting for optimizing investments, analyzing the traffic flow along with the actual traffic for a period of time to optimizing the number of vehicles required to support a larger influx of passengers at a specific time of day, or time of year.
The benefit of getting real-time information is a better understanding of how the system is working from a fare perspective, and also for the bus and rail system overall. This allows an organization to be more adaptive to changing needs and provide better scheduling.
“It’s about being proactive instead of reactive. It’s about providing the best information to a customer to allow them to think through the day and be able to understand how it changes throughout the day,” said Reese.
