Technology S-CURVE
It is over 10,000 years since the wheel was originally invented. Since then, after a very long period of ‘early exploration’, we have seen many technological breakthroughs in transport, especially in public transport. Today, our industry has a wide and colourful palette of tools to perform its tasks. However, we already reached the wheel’s technological limits a few decades ago and with it, the end of its impressive developmental curve…
INFORMATION Technology
Instead, we are concentrating on improving the existing tools, through the use of innovative information and communication technologies, at all levels, and in every detail.
We increasingly want to offer integration and interoperability to create a seamless journey. By intelligently linking our separate tools, we transform them into systems; if the connected entities are also ’digitally aware‘, the created system becomes ’smarter‘: whether through eTicketing or Travel Information, our passengers want to become smart travellers.
At the same time there is a relentless demand for more efficiency and higher performance. New technologies allow us to optimize and fine-tune our traditional
operations and services like never before.
But above all, information technology enables us to act beyond simply operations and to finally become genuinely customer-oriented. Social Media opens up an unavoidable one-to-one dialogue with our customers.
The use of information technology also ushers in new potential partners previously beyond the scope of our sector. EMV and NFC bring us banks and telecom operators, Google and Apple bring us ’Apps‘… How to capitalise on this growing interest from big business ready make a foray into our ’killer-application‘: public transport?
Given that technology itself is almost never a problem – but rather the underlying complexity and organisation – such global topics need a lot of discussion time to mature. The conference sessions at IT-TRANS are the ideal networking platform for you to discuss and learn about the latest thinking on these difficult and challenging issues.
IT-TRANS
Designed specifically to discuss IT solutions in public transport, is the international conference and exhibition platform IT-TRANS, offered by UITP. UITP’s extensive membership – from industry middle and top management – enables us to mobilize quality people to deliver quality content for you to experience quality time. We like to talk about our IT family.
The 2012 edition of the biannual con-ference and exhibition will address again a wide range of issues via:
• Conference sessions providing you with global developments and overall knowledge to support strategic decisions (8 main sessions with 36 speakers),
• The Exhibition, home to 56 market update presentations, providing local knowledge and operational decisions from all over the world.
There are problems that you simply cannot solve by yourself. These have to be addressed – with the help of the IT Family – on a national, or even international level. Clearly, these are the domain of UITP and its partners like ASSTRA, VDV and UTP. The platform is IT-TRANS.
PTx2
At IT-TRANS 2010, UITP Secretary General Hans Rat launched the sector stra-tegy PTx2: to double the market share of public transport worldwide by 2025. Not surprisingly, a pivotal role will be played by Information Technology professionals. Your area of expertise will be instrumental to bringing public transport into the 21st century and advancing the PTx2 goals; we want to become a lifestyle choice, be at the leading edge of new business, act more commercially, and create the space for yet more improvements.
How we accomplish all of this largely depends on the success of your solutions. We are looking for any kind of forward-looking innovation, large or small, short or long term.
Three issues will form the central plank of IT-TRANS:
Travel information
There is an ongoing discussion about a ’European multimodal journey planner‘. The discussion is driving the hotly-debated topic of ’sharing of data‘, and not only on the European scale.
The public transport sector has been developing attractive and advanced IT solutions for journey planning, including real time information and fares for a long time now. Travel information and journey planners that are successful today are mostly local or regional, but also national with responsibility taken by the local and regional – and sometimes national – authorities. However, over the past 10 years, there has also been successful cooperation on a larger scale, for example EU-Spirit.
This kind of (European) planner is based on the principle of Distributed Journey Planning so that the local data can stay under the control of its owners. These ‘local’ sources would preferably be tapped into from the highest possible level of aggregation, such as a national mobility service provider. If such a national MSP does not exist, the sources (have to) move down to regional and local levels.
The key questions when discussing journey planners are access to data and rules for reuse of data. Responsibility needs to be clearly defined and there is an essential customer requirement for affordable, accessible, reliable, relevant and updated information. On a global level, we need a framework that is supported by the public transport sector including local, regional and long distance public transport but also supports attractive and user-friendly solutions using different channels developed not only by the public transport sector but also by third parties.
For more details you can consult the UITP EuroTeam common position on the “European MM Journey Planner”. It is the result of years of consensus-building for a Travel Information Market (TIM) and the proposed EU-TravelNet project. Add your voice to this discussion at IT-TRANS.
Ticketing
Today, there is a definite trend for moving data from the card to the back office. The information on the medium could be replaced by a unique ID number serving as a reference to your data and your means of payment. Actually, this is what is ’sort of’ behind the term EMV, which uses contactless bankcards as a medium. But instead of a bankcard, the medium could also be a passport, health card, or a mobile phone…
…“ID-Based Ticketing” or ticketing as a service, is unlike existing ticketing schemes. In the future a system would probably accept many different kinds of unique ID numbers – as long as there is some means of guaranteeing payment.
And what to think about the everlasting NFC (Near Field Communication) hype? Perhaps NFC-enabled phones will quickly penetrate the market. That would certainly catapult schemes based on this technology like Deutsche Bahn’s Touch&Travel.
Whatever happens, it will not consolidate the developments in electronic ticketing. The same is true for the European interoperable electronic ticketing agenda. The conclusions from the IFM-project are still valid but these new techniques open up new ideas and solutions.
Choices are difficult and will not get any easier. Talk and listen to the experts at IT-TRANS to form your own opinion, your own vision.
Social Media
Maybe the most important part of IT-TRANS is the serious introduction of the Social Media topic – the real customer perspective. Many of us are aware of it, but keep following a traditional approach. Some play it down as insignificant (“why should I Twitter”) and others see it
for what it is: a modern means of communication, especially with our younger customers.
Social Media is all about two-way conversations, providing information in a customized way, being there when necessary, and not staying silent when a customer asks for a response. Social Media requires a concept and should not be underestimated.
Would you still send a letter or a fax to register for the next UITP World Congress in Geneva? Why would a teenager use the phone if he/she has Facebook?
The world around us is changing rapidly and we tend to live in our own small world. This is a wake-up call for all those who do not want to miss the link with the new ge-nerations, the new way of thinking, the world of social networking.
See it at IT-TRANS.
Share on:
