Passengers will be able to use their mobile phones as tickets from this spring
London, 23rd April 2014 – Thames Clippers today announced that they have signed a five year contract with Masabi, the leader in mobile ticketing and payments for transit, to bring smartphone ticketing to its River Bus service operating on the River Thames. Thames Clippers is the leading River Bus service for both commuters and visitors to London, with the fastest and most frequent fleet on the river. They serve piers from Putney in the West through to Woolwich in the East, with a 20 minute frequency at Central London Piers.
Thames Clippers is currently seeing strong growth in passenger numbers with the introduction of new routes and the convenience of services such as free Wi-Fi and on board Costa Coffee shops. Mobile ticketing will aid this growth further by offering customers a user-friendly way to pay as well as adding a significant sales capacity without the need to invest further in infrastructure such as ticket vending machines.
Thames Clippers will be using Masabi’s JustRide product a cloud-based, deployment-proven, end-to-end mobile ticketing and fare collection system. It comprises award-winning apps for ticket purchase, display and validation together with back-end infrastructure for secure payments, ticket management, customer service, reporting and real-time analytics.
Masabi is the global leader in mobile phone ticketing for transport. The company provides mobile ticketing for the cities of Boston and San Diego in the US as well as 13 of the UK’s rail operators.
“Masabi is based a stone’s throw from the Thames and many of our team are regular users of the service,” said Dennis Marshall, Vice President of Business Development. “We are delighted to be working with Thames Clippers to dramatically increase their sales capacity, while at the same time providing added convenience to their passengers.”
Sean Collins, CEO of Thames Clippers said: “At Thames Clippers we continually look at ways to improve the customer experience in all areas. Recently our focus has been on our ticketing systems and the introduction of a mobile system. The addition of mobile ticketing means that our passengers will now be able to buy their tickets anywhere, without the need to queue at ticket machines or fumble for the correct change. We are thrilled to be working with Masabi to be launching this system.”
About Thames Clippers
Thames Clippers is the leading River Bus service on the River Thames running a 20 minute frequency between key London piers including North Greenwich for The O2, Greenwich, Canary Wharf, Tower, London Bridge, Embankment and London Eye for Waterloo, as well as several residential piers. In April 2013 the company won the five-year contract to run a River Bus service from Putney to Blackfriars. The new route means Thames Clippers now additionally stop at Putney, Wandsworth Riverside, Chelsea Harbour and Cadogan Pier, a total of 19 piers across the capital.
Co-founded in 1999 by Sean Collins (Managing Director) and Alan Woods (former Chairman), the company began with one boat servicing 80 passengers a day between Greenland and Savoy piers. More than ten years on numbers have significantly risen to over three million a year.
In 2006 AEG, owners and operators of The O2, acquired the majority stake in the company and since then the fleet has substantially grown to 13 vessels. River Bus Express for The O2 is an additional fast direct service between London Eye, London Bridge and Canary Wharf to The O2 at North Greenwich on arena event nights.
For more info visit the website www.thamesclippers.com or follow @ThamesClippers
About Masabi
Masabi is the leader in transit mobile ticketing and payments, delivering end-to-end systems to agencies that bring significant cost savings and enhanced customer experience. Masabi’s JustRide system signals the end of ticket lines, lost tickets and fumbling for cash by allowing passengers to quickly and securely buy and display tickets on their mobile phones. Masabi enables transit agencies to move away from capital intensive “locked-in” systems, such as smartcards and costly customised ticket machines, to a flexible, open system that transforms passengers’ travel experience today, with a roadmap to NFC and open payments in the future.
Masabi is backed by Fontinalis Partners, m8 Capital and MMC Ventures. The company’s scalable cloud-based technology already processes more than 90 million dollars per year, handles millions of connections per day, and is in use by 17 global transit agencies and retail brands, including: Virgin Trains, First Group, Boston’s MBTA, San Diego MTS and CrossCountry Trains. More information about Masabi is available at www.masabi.com.
Media Contacts
Temono for Masabi
Stephanie Ross
Tel: +44 (0) 207 089 8894
Email: stephanie.ross@temono.com