Transit Voices

Ben Whitaker’s guest on this month’s Transit Voices is Katherine Conrad, Executive Director at NEOride,  works to break down artificial boundaries, streamline operations and make it easier for riders to use public transit to travel across Ohio and beyond.

In the conversation Katherine tells Masabi’s co-founder why transit operators need to concentrate on what they’re good at, and not get distracted by things they would be better off buying in: “To me, the purpose of public transit is to provide transportation and that is our realm,” she explains. “Do public transit really want to get into journey planning complex apps, or fare payment or all of these other things in the name of being able to control it, where you could be partnering with other companies whose whole business is doing this?”

 Also, she tells us about her international travel, how she's found traveling in London, the benefits of Open Payments, and how she doesn't want to go toe to toe and compete with Google Maps or Transit app, when trying to make public transit available.  “Keeping up with that technology is expensive and time-consuming,” she says.  “And so for any transit agency, to try and take that on, to me is ridiculous, because we'll never have the funding to be able to go toe to toe with Google Maps.”

 Katherine explains why she thinks cities should focus on providing easy, contactless payment options instead of investing in complex, customized fare systems and simplifying fares to make transit more accessible. You’ll also hear her and Ben’s thoughts on how to ensure transit agencies don't compete with each other and utilise solutions such as central call centers to ensure they operate as efficiently as possible. You’ll also hear why her boondoggle is the revenue versus capital expenditure funding conundrum.

Join us for the episode of the Transit Voices podcast, featuring Guillermo Campoamor, co-founder of the Mobility as a Service company Meep. Host Ben Whitaker and Guillermo delve into how technology is poised to improve public transportation. They explore improving discoverability, integrating public and private systems, and simplifying fare collection.

Meep, a digital solution that connects various transportation services, is the brainchild of Guillermo Campoamor. His unexpected journey into transport technology was ignited by his frequent travels in the wine industry and the challenges he faced with inconsistent transportation systems. His passion for transforming the sector is palpable as he shares his story.

“In some cities, I managed to cover all my appointments and meetings, basically cover the agenda, as I previously planned for every trip, and in some other cities was the total opposite experience,” he explains.  “I had to reschedule tastings, I had to meet with clients on different days, and even extend my trips. So I was wondering, why on earth is this happening? And mostly it was due to a lack of public transport or inefficient transport patterns. And that's why I decided to start my own journey in transportation.”

He and Ben delve into the pressing need for a cultural shift towards more efficient and sustainable transportation modes. They underline the importance of accurate real-time information, accessibility, and connecting different data sources. The discussion also brings to light the urgent need for sustainable mobility solutions in cities, particularly for big corporations with many workers who commute.

Take a trip around the world as the transit offerings in Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong along with Mexico, Malta, Moscow and Madrid are all analyzed, and the ability to turn data into information is vital:

 “One of the things we realized in the early days that the big transport operators, the ones that are doing even more than a million trips per day, they have information scattered, all over the place,” Guillermo adds.  “They are getting some information from the end users, but they're also getting information from the validation machines, they're getting information from the cameras, so they have like maybe like five, four or six different channels that they need to also make sense together and put into context.”

Tune in to discover how Guillermo and his team at Meep are making transportation more efficient and sustainable, and enjoy the lively debate between guest and host on Guillermo’s choice of Boondoggle.

On this episode of Transit Voices, Ben Whitaker welcomes one of the industry's most inspirational leaders, India Birdsong Terry, the General Manager and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.

 India, who took the helm of GCRTA just before Covid, delves into her decision to maintain fare collection during the pandemic.  “I did not want folks to devalue the $2.50 that was paid in order to get on board our vehicle,” she says. “We understand that we help when it's needed - we’re a social service - but I didn't want to give the impression that’s free – someone pays for it”.

India Birdsong Terry sheds light on the innovative strides of GCRTA in revolutionizing the payment system. The organization is leveraging the latest technology to offer fare capping through an app: “So we're almost dangling the fair capping idea as a means to have folks get rid of the old technology in their mind that they've been promised for years, but hadn't been fully realized,” she explains, “To say, hey, you really don't need that, let's zoom ahead and get with the program on a global perspective, and be able to fair cap in another year or so.”

 The conversation then turns to the use of public transit to drive down the use of the car, especially in city centers, something Ben is very passionate about.  “Having two shops either side of a boulevard that you can't get to safely because there's no sidewalk, no bridges… six lanes to cross and it's just not a space made for people and it's killing our cities,” he comments.  “Downtown dies when you've got huge numbers of vehicle lanes stopping you wanting to be there. And it’s the complete opposite of making a nice place for people and it resulted in in shopping malls.  The shopping mall is an artificial city center where there are no cars allowed, and that's why people like hanging out in the shopping mall because they can wander around and cross from one shop to the other without cars everywhere.” 

In a very busy conversation, the episode also covers GCRTA’s efforts to enhance transit accessibility and encourage public transit usage, from extending routes to partnering with major employers. India describes their strategic approach:   “We created an RFP, a request for proposal… and we handle all of the marketing, the scheduling, all of the kind of soft services that go into transportation,” she says.  “And if an Amazon, for example, has a new plant somewhere that we don't serve, they are responsible for finding a third party operator to be able to partner with them, and they partner with us to be able to provide the shift times and they actually drive that service from our last bus stop or train stop to their front door.”

Additionally, the dialogue touches on the importance of employee benefits, including childcare, elder care, and healthcare, which India argues are essential for retaining enthusiastic staff.

Set aside 45 minutes for one of the best discussions on transit you’ll encounter this month!

This month’s episode of Transit Voices delves into the intricate world of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) with Sampo Hietanen, the visionary behind the travel app Whim. Coming on the heels of MaaS Global’s bankruptcy filing in Finland, Sampo shares invaluable insights from the two-decade journey of all-in mobility innovations.

Sampo and host Ben Whitaker unravel the essence of MaaS, debating whether its core lies in journey planning or payment functionalities, and draw parallels to the evolution of the telecoms market in terms of subscriptions and roaming.  

A significant portion of their discussion focuses on the competitive landscape, with Sampo pointing out that different public transport modes should not see each other as rivals but should work together.  “For MaaS to actually start thriving, we'll have to define kind of the competitive landscape in a bit of a different way,” he explains.  “20% of household costs go now into mobility, [and] 76% of that money goes into the car, and the car ownership. Now within the services industry, if we would all consider changing the paradigm of what is my competition, and if the competition is car against everything else, we would see it in a different format where it makes sense to actually collaborate in order to tap open that three quarters of the market which is blocked.”

The conversation also touches upon various subscription models tested by MaaS Global. When people are offered unrestricted MaaS, including access to a car, their car use actually falls in time as they choose public transport: “We tried for seven years with these customers having unlimited - so they have unlimited taxis, unlimited cars, unlimited public transport, everything unlimited.  And surprise, surprise, their modal split was always going up with public transport.”

Despite differing views on the importance of a single payment system within MaaS, Sampo and Ben concur that investing public funds in city-specific MaaS solutions, which compete against established transit planners, may not be the most effective use of resources. This episode of Transit Voices offers a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities within the MaaS ecosystem, providing a comprehensive look at its potential to transform urban mobility.

This month on Transit Voices we go beyond the headlines with Carlos Felipe Pardo from Colombia, a champion cyclist who then became a mobility and urban transport policy adviser for organizations such as the UN and the World Bank.

In the conversation with Masabi co-founder Ben Whitaker, Carlos explains why car schemes always seem to get the investment instead of public transit. “Many times, we see the large investments in roads, because they're incredibly expensive, and that is pretty clear to people in transportation” he says. “But then people who have the voice in the media, and in policy, and even in Congress, they are people who are either riding a car all day or most of the time, or would like to.”

We also get the real story behind some of the projects like Bogota’s BRT bike parks, former Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa’s quotation on real developed cities having the bankers on the bus, and a few of the really gnarly problems about safety, getting people on to public transport in more dangerous areas. Carlos gives an interesting insight to the issue in Bogata: “BRT is the safest way to move in Bogota, in terms of road safety,” says.  “The worst way to travel in Bogota is walking, sadly, going by motorbike, then riding a bicycle. So public transport is incredibly safe in terms of road safety, [but] getting to the buses, not so safe.”

You’ll also hear about why road tunnels are a boondoggle in urban transportation, and why Carlos thinks cargo bikes are a big underdog in cities.

This month’s Transit Voices welcomes David Block-Schachter, the Chief Business Officer at Transit to talk about designing transit solutions around what riders need.

“One of the biggest issues I think, is that when you work within an agency, you are beset by all of the internal requirements about what something needs to do, as opposed to focusing on what the rider needs, as you should be,” he says.

David, who lives a car-free life, explains how traditional thinking in transit has been an issue, because sometimes the technology in the vehicle costs the same as the vehicle itself.

“We were running these Mercedes Sprinter vans around Boston,” he tells host Ben Whitaker. “We were trying to figure out how you would pay for fare in an integrated way, and the only way they could figure out how to do it was to put a farebox on this Mercedes Sprinter van. Well, the problem was that the fare box actually cost more than the vehicle.”

The episode also delves into broader topics like Mobility as a Service, open payments, the integration of bikes and various transit modes, and the MBTA’s Charlie 2.0 procurement.

You’ll also hear why driver split shifts are David’s boondoggle, while his underdog is investing in staff capability and training.

This episode of Transit Voices features host Ben Whitaker in conversation with Satinder Bhalla, President and Co-founder of TransSIGHT, a transit services company and IT integrator that works with all sorts of different transit agencies joining together their data.

They dive into the critical role of data in transforming transit services and how agencies can pivot from providing standard services to those actually desired by passengers.

“I've felt like there has always been a friction between the riders and what is being offered,” says Satinder, “which makes it totally inconvenient. So that was indeed the one key element for us to solve as part of TransSIGHT.”

Satinder and Ben discuss the difference between providing products which an agency uses to fulfil its needs, or customized solutions, which take much more work to provide based on an agency’s wish list and how to move towards products.

This will happen “Only if the agencies start to look to procure something more like a solution,” says Ben. “Because I think the habits in the industry… and the cost of a procurement process, makes people feel that they've got to fill everything on their Christmas list in, if Christmas only comes once every ten years. The tendency to fill out all possible requirements for the next five to 10 years means it's very hard to get a productized solution, and it almost always results in something customized.”

In their conversation, they also discuss APIs, how the US might catch up and even overtake Europe when it comes to new ways of paying for transit, and the procurement for small businesses. You’ll also hear why, when it comes to Satinder’s boondoggle, it has to be Chat GPT.

This month on Transit Voices, we are thrilled to host Richard Rowson, a trailblazer in online ticket sales, known for his pioneering work on the UK's Trainline website two decades ago. 

In this program, he tells host Ben Whitaker about the challenges in setting up the site because, as he puts it “until 2007 the industry in many ways wasn't ready for it.” Discover the blend of online transactions and fax communications that marked the early days of digital ticketing, facilitating passengers to have their tickets printed at specific stations

 “A lot of that first decade was the heavy engineering,” he explains, “How can you build a Journey Planner that takes all these feeds and within a few seconds can give you some journey results?”

The conversation about journey planning deepens as Richard talks about how even now, planners do not take into account the real world, “They'll either try and get you on the bus all the way from door to door, which will probably look slow and unappealing, or they'll give you a driving option where they assume that you'll be able to park on the pavement right outside the office that you're going to and completely ignore the issue that you'll end up parked in a multi-story a mile away from where you're going and still have a miles walk at the end of your journey,” he says.  Ben agrees, commenting “Some of the data feeds you're now consuming to find those buses and shuttles and everything else aren't fit for purpose yet, because nobody's really used them and you find out that they're wrong or out of date,” he says. “And that's hard, hard, hard work, and someone somewhere has to pay for it.” 

The discussion takes a fascinating turn toward monetizing journey planning and the allure of Mobility as a Service for some companies. While that’s a snippet to leave you hooked, this episode also unfolds discussions on contactless pay-as-you-go systems, fare policies, compensation, revenue management, and the gaps that exist in the current transit framework. Tune in to this engaging episode of Transit Voices to explore the evolution of online ticketing and the myriad dimensions of journey planning in the modern transit landscape.

On this episode of Transit Voices, we embark on a journey through time to envision the future of our cities under the leadership of the emerging “new urbanists.”

Our spotlight guest is Jerome Horne, a notable “new urbanist” from TransitCenter, a foundation devoted to enhancing public transit across US cities by introducing innovative design ideas for both urban spaces and their transit systems.

In the podcast, Jerome tells host Ben Whitaker how he’s always been interested in transit, so much so that at the age of ten he wrote to the CEO of the transit system in his home city of Baltimore asking how he could get his job when he grew up.

“When I was younger, I was just playing with model train sets, maybe watching Thomas the Tank Engine,” Jerome says.  “My dad gave me an early copy of the game Sim City, and so you know, there was a fascination there.”

Speaking on the “new urbanists” movement, Jerome delves into the importance of creating cities that prioritize liveability, emphasizing the pivotal role of efficient transport systems. “It is encouraging, we are seeing more focus on the rise of urbanism - just the concept of a walkable place become more mainstream,” he says.  “What we're talking about is people, regardless of demographic, socio ideology, even political positioning.  A lot of people just like to go to a place where they can walk. This is really key to the future and how do we figure out how to orientate cities around humans.”

Jerome discusses the need to reduce parking provision so that more people are encouraged to take public transit, but also to educate them about the options.  “Some people are just either unexperienced or they're just ignorant about taking public transit,” he says.  “And I don't mean ignorant in the sense that’s a bad thing, but because there hasn't been good public education campaign.  There are simple barriers sometimes that get in the way of deciding to make a different choice, so some of that is just a marketing and education campaign to show people they only live five minutes away from a bus route that runs every ten minutes, and takes you where you like to go on the weekends.”

The conversation extends to concepts like the 15-minute cities, carrot and stick, and targeting people ready and willing to change their travel habits.  You’ll also discover why the so-called Tesla Tunnels are Jerome’s boondoggle.

In this unprecedented episode of Transit Voices, we're thrilled to introduce not one but two special guests: Miguel Velázquez, the new CEO of Rochester RTS, and the agency’s Director of IT, Chris Mahood. Together with host Ben Whitaker, they delve into an engaging conversation about their agency’s transformative fare payments journey.

The two guests explain how they have taken their agency all the way from basic ticketing through mobile ticketing barcodes, Account-Based Ticketing, cards, fare capping, and cash digitization, all the while recognizing that since COVID, transit agencies are not just about running 40-foot buses, but about providing mobility solutions to the entire community.

Miguel explains how offering new, more customer-focused ticketing options only works when the customer is properly engaged and understands that new ways of paying for transit are in their interest.  “We really spent a lot of time communicating and providing hands-on education and training opportunities with our customers right at the transit center in front of our ticket vending machines and our customer service desk,” he tells Ben, “Just helping allay any of those concerns or those points of anxiety: am I buying the right fare for what I need?”

He adds that if you get it right, you get greater ridership and traveler satisfaction, explaining: “Let's stop making transit something that is a hardship, or it's just difficult, or there are challenges or barriers to using transit - we want to make it as easy as possible.”

Meanwhile,  Chris talks about simplifying the method of identification for transit payments to eliminate another obstacle to boarding the bus, revealing,  “by leveraging their employee IDs, their student IDs, their whatever it may be, so that it doesn't become a secondary item that they have to keep on themselves,” he says.  “It's just an item that is standardized to their employment or as a student becomes an item that they can utilize for transportation.”

In the fascinating conversation, you’ll also hear their views on why AI is both a boondoggle and an opportunity for the industry, and Miguel’s advice to their counterparts in the transit industry to become completely customer-focussed: “We are going through a transformation as an industry, where we don't think of ourselves just as a 40-foot bus going up and down the street anymore,” he says. “And so how do we become that next type of organization or industry that serves the customers’ expectations? I would encourage companies like Masabi and others that we need to get to a point where we know, just like many other industries know, who their customers are. The anonymity of our customers is still a big issue. ”