- UbiRider’s transportation management system enables MobiAzores, a transit system on Terceira Island.
- The app PICK from UbiRider allows passengers to access bus data and make payments, while the bus operator can gain real-time and historical data about bus use.
UbiRider has deployed a software solution to streamline transport management and boost passenger experience in the Azores this summer.
The system, known as UbiRider Platform, offers contactless and digital payments on the Portuguese island that’s popular with tourists from across the globe. It includes an onboard payment system with an app for any standard Android smartphone, mounted by the bus driver. With the app passengers can tap and pay, or tap and access; or pay with their contactless bank cards.
Over the height of this year’s tourist season, the MobiAzores system has been used to streamline access to transportation on Terceira Island. In order to ride the island’s public buses, individuals tap their contactless card or their smartphone using Apple Pay or Google Pay.
A Single App for Travel Access
Users could download the mobility as a service app—PICK— to plan trips, pay the fares and gain real time information about the service. In the long term, the app could be used to pay for other services such as parking or use e-bikes.
UbiRider’s platform was previously deployed at several other European sites: Trevo, Fertagus, Próximo and Urbanas de Beja. In the next few weeks, it will be launched in the cities of Cascais and Vianorbus, in Portugal.
The launch of MobiAzores this year coincided with the second anniversary of UbiRider’s global partnership with Mastercard, said Paulo dos Santos, CEO of UbiRider.
Terceira is one island in an archipelago known as Azores with a population of 53,000. Terceira includes the city of Angra do Heroísmo, an UNESCO World Heritage Site, and beaches, as well as offering tourists with the opportunity to watch a bull fight—or take on a bull themselves—during specific festivals.
We are Going to Do it Live
On the island, MobiAzores manages 45 buses that travel between Angra do Heroísmo and the city of Praia da Vitória. Both locals and tourists can travel around the island on the buses to access its scenic and cultural attractions. And with the historical data, the bus company can view passenger trends which they use to make business decisions and to optimize services.
Deployment of the system begins by populating the software with bus network data. Users, such as bus companies, provide UbiRider with the same information they provide to Google Maps related to bus routes and schedules. Additionally, they offer the list of the drivers of the fleet and their routes. That information can be uploaded easily and fast at UbiRider Platform and it is the base to manage any transit operation. It can be changed by the transit company at any time.
How it Works
Each bus is equipped with an onboard terminal in the form of an Android smartphone. When the driver logs in, they are informed about the services allocated to them for that day in the UbiRider Platform’s backoffice. They start the next bus service.
During the bus operation, the onboard system collects each tap or payment data, and other relevant geolocation data, like the ETA at each stop or the bus position in the map. That data is sent in real-time to the bus company’s back office in the UbiRider Platform, for both immediate information and historical analysis, and to the riders that are traveling with the app PICK for schedules of the buses they are waiting for.
Those visiting the island can download the app PICK to plan their trips, able to pick from a menu of passes—monthly, senior or disabled, or free social pass for 10 days for those who qualify.
They can then use their preferred payment method, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay or a debit/credit card. The device deducts the payment amount, and they are free to enter and take a seat. When they leave the bus, they do not need to tap their phone again.
UbiRider Aims to Address Payment Challenges
Early on, UbiRider’s founders were focused on solving a problem around the expense of contactless payments for the transit community. They aimed to address the difficulty related to integrating contactless payments with what are non-connected systems in use by transit operators. Most of these systems, pointed out dos Santos, “were not designed with the concept of APIs or web services.”
Another challenge is the complicated and expensive nature of traditional “Open Loop” ticketing for the transportation environment in which a variety of vendors are involved.
Additionally, metropolitan communities need interoperability between systems as the same card can be used across multiple transit types or companies during the same single trip. Such operations—both public or private —can include local parking, bus, train or e-bike options, “each of which might be operated by a different company,” said dos Santos.
Post pandemic, the public began seeking touch-free systems that enabled the convenience of travel and payments, but with fewer delays, lines, or contacts with others that could transmit infections.
Modernizing Transportation
One of the reasons contactless payments have not been adopted as fast in transit systems as they have in stores and restaurants is the need for fast service. Dos Santos pointed to restaurant payments in which a transaction might take a few seconds to be approved.
In a restaurant, he said “if you take eight seconds to perform a payment is not a big deal. But eight seconds in transit is a lot,” noted Dos Santos. That is why most contactless payment systems for transit operations work most of the time offline. That makes it fast to perform a payment, but it implies complex and costly processes and technology, he said.
So UbiRider set out to change the paradigm for an online system, which would be fast enough to be used in transit—but simpler and cheaper. The company mixes cloud and mobile computing to accomplish fast payment acceptance on the onboard devices.
“We found an opportunity to modernize those old systems, but the challenge would be how could we design this in a scalable way,” dos Santos said. They chose to use standard Android smartphones as the onboard bus terminal to receive payments via NFC, reading contactless bank cards and interacting with passengers’ smartphones or smartwatches.
UbiRider, which launched the first operation in July 2022, partnered with MasterCard to embed its payment system that could enable each financial transaction. While the company’s first customers have been bus and train operators, its solution is intended for use in parking, ferries, carshare services as well as bikes or scooters.
The Benefits
Operators using UbiRider Platform have access to tools related to payment transactions, but management can access and manage details about each bus, driver or service, in real time.
For example, they can view data related to each rider that pays to ride, or just validate a ticket or pass. The data helps identify how crowded the bus is as well as when and where riders are typically coming from and going. That information helps bus management better allocate its fleet of vehicles.
When compared against other transit payment methods, the payment system is fast enough for passengers while the company can access more data including analytics that they didn’t have before, said dos Santos. He adds that use of the system is simpler than many IT systems that companies adopt.
“They don’t need to understand [much] about technology, we eliminate from them the complexity of learning technology,” he said.