Optibus has acquired Trillium, which will become Optibus’ Global Center for Data Excellence and operate as a subsidiary.
Trillium is integrating its expertise in public transportation data feeds into Optibus, strengthening and diversifying Optibus’ mass transportation optimization capabilities and reinforcing the company’s global expansion strategy.
Mobile apps play a key role in transit passenger journeys. Every day, people use their phones to discover transit options, plan journeys and access real-time ETAs and service changes. When data is missing or inaccurate, riders go uninformed, directly impacting ridership levels and passenger experience. Optibus says uninformed riders perceive unexpected wait times as three to five times as burdensome as in-vehicle time, reducing the usefulness and appeal of public transportation.
Trillium’s championship of public transportation data, including General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), helps improve passenger communication, allowing the industry to publish schedule and real-time service data in a format consumable by apps including Google Maps and Apple Maps. In its 14 years of operation, Trillium says it has helped more than 350 U.S. transit agencies and operators, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Caltrain, Anaheim Resort Transportation, San Francisco Bay Ferry, Sonoma County Transit, DC Streetcar and the Departments of Transportation in Massachusetts, Oregon, Colorado and other U.S. states, to improve passenger experience and communication.
The acquisition diversifies Optibus’ service offering to include Trillium’s data-centric products and services, including GTFS Manager, transit alerts, interactive maps and transit websites. Optibus will begin to take a consultative approach to challenges that cannot be solved by software alone, but also need data aggregation and analysis.
“Our acquisition of Trillium accelerates Optibus towards its vision of an all-encompassing, end-to-end software platform for daily transportation operations. We are committed to realizing that vision through the development of cutting-edge technology alongside organic business developments and corporate development initiatives that enable us to work with industry leaders like Trillium,” said Amos Haggiag, CEO and co-founder of Optibus.
“Open data systems are what drives public transport forward,” added Aaron Antrim, founder and CEO of Trillium. “By joining Optibus, Trillium will integrate its data-centric offerings into an end-to-end software platform for public transportation operations, enabling us to continue offering excellent support and consultancy to transit agencies and state and federal DOT customers in North America.”
