Problem
Brighton & Hove Buses wanted to be able to offer their customers the facility to use contactless bank cards or phones on the bus and be charged the best price without the need to pre-purchase a ticket. This service would encourage infrequent bus users, put off by complex ticketing options, to travel by bus more often, and increase bus usage overall. On board ticket purchases were causing increased passenger board times, which may have contributed to delayed services, especially in a tourist spot like Brighton. We needed to develop a solution that was easy to use and capped fares across two bus operating companies in Brighton.
Solution
We leveraged the existing Tap On readers and back office, introduced Tap Off readers on the buses, updated and improved the customer portal and developed updates to the ETMs and back office. This has enabled us to record at which stop a passenger leaves the bus and recreate their whole journey in the back office to charge the correct fare. The ability to understand the end-to-end journey means we can also provide daily fare capping. Not only does this solution work with a single operator in Brighton and Hove, but it also works across Metrobus effectively making it a multi operator system too.
Customers can also track their journeys and fares history using a customer portal.
Results
There has been a large uptake of the Tap On, Tap Off service, generating £125,000 of sales in its first week, even though very little was spent on marketing it to customers. Transaction times have dramatically reduced compared to a retail contactless transaction, which takes 8-10 seconds, and this will, in turn, reduce boarding times.
If you’d like to know more about our Tap On, Tap Off service, please contact us.