Masabi: bespoke tech is holding transit agencies back

Sixty per cent of transit agencies looking to use account-based ticketing are struggling with bespoke technology which is slow to deploy and costly to maintain, claims 6870 Masabi.

Masabi CEO Brian Zanghi says agencies have been “denied access” to systems that keep pace with technology in a cost-effective way and have had to invest in bespoke automatic fare collection (AFC) systems.

“This has led to limited innovation with some agencies able to purchase the latest systems but leaving many underserved and left with systems that are outdated,” he continues. “This isn’t fair to passengers; public transit riders and agencies deserve better.”

Masabi %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external surveyed false https://info.masabi.com/hubfs/A%20Guide%20to%20Fare%20Payments-as-a-Service%20for%20Public%20Transit-V3-Web.pdf false false%> more than 60 transit agencies in North America, investigating their core AFC system and the impact this technology is having on their ability to work with new solutions.

The study - Transit Agency Research Report: The State of Fare Collection - reveals that 43% of agencies have been operating their core AFC systems for more than a decade.

Six out of 10 agencies stated that adding new features to their system was either ‘hard’ or ‘very hard’ with updates occasionally or hardly ever happening.

Other findings show that 41% of agencies are paying more than 10% of their revenue to run their AFC system while nearly a quarter are looking into deploying account-based Mobility as a Service solutions.

Masabi recommends Fare Payment as a Service (FPaaS) as a better alternative because it allows public transit operators to pay for services on a subscription basis instead of signing up to a fare payments platform. This enables agencies to quickly deliver ‘tap and ride’ solutions, the company adds.

Aside from the report, Masabi has %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external published false https://info.masabi.com/hubfs/A%20Guide%20to%20Fare%20Payments-as-a-Service%20for%20Public%20Transit-V3-Web.pdf false false%> an ebook called A Guide to Fare Payments-as-a Service to help transit agencies benefit from the FPaaS model.