Passengers can now use their mobile phones to buy and display tickets on City Bus, Electric Trolley-Bus, Metro, Tram and Suburban Railway in Greek Capital
London, 14th January 2015 – Transport for Athens (OASA Group) and Masabi, the leader in transit mobile ticketing and fare collection, today announced that they have deployed mobile ticketing in the city across all modes of public transport. The deployment, which soft launched as a pilot in late December, represents the city’s first implementation of a digital ticketing system that supplements its co-existing paper ticket cash-based operation. Athens has rolled-out Masabi’s end-to-end mobile ticketing system, JustRide, which has been successfully deployed in other large cities including; Boston, London, San Diego and will be launching in New York.Athens’ 1.0 million daily public transport customers are now able to purchase and display tickets for immediate and future travel through their smartphone, saving time and hassle. Meanwhile, Transport for Athens expects to reduce its costs for handling cash and paper ticket printing, enabling new investments into its infrastructure and services.
Masabi’s JustRide is a cloud-based, deployment-proven, end-to-end mobile ticketing and fare collection system. It comprises award-winning apps for ticket purchase, display and inspection together with back-end infrastructure for secure payments, ticket management, customer service, reporting and real-time analytics. In a separate announcement today, Masabi revealed that it is partnering with MasterCard to deliver and promote the mobile ticketing concept to public transport operators globally.
“Mobile ticketing offers a win-win situation for Athens, combining an excellent user experience for passengers with the added benefit of reducing the costs associated with cash handling,” said Gregory Dimitriadis, Chairman of the BoD & CEO, Transport for Athens. “In deploying Masabi’s technology across all modes of public transport in Athens, we are launching one of the world’s largest mobile ticketing deployments seen to date. We are proud to be leading the world in offering this innovation across all modes of transport.”
“The smartphone has given us the opportunity to offer the most significant innovation in transport fare collection. Mobile ticketing not only provides customers with a user-friendly way to pay for travel but will also aid growth by adding significant sales capacity without the need to invest in costly infrastructure,” said Brian Zanghi, CEO, Masabi. “We have already made JustRide a success in major global cities with high passenger volumes such as London and Boston, with New York soon to follow suit. We look forward to working with Athens to facilitate the first deployment of its kind in mainland Europe.”
About Transport for Athens
Transport for Athens (TfA) is the brand name of the OASA Group. The Athens Urban Transport Organisation (OASA S.A.) is the transport authority of the greater area of Athens, Greece, responsible for planning and managing all public transport services except railways. As a holding company, it has two subsidiaries that operate and maintain the transport network: STASY S.A. (metro and tram) and OSY S.A. (thermal and trolley buses). The OASA Group moves around 1 million individual passengers daily, has annual revenues of approx. 250 million Euros excluding state subsidy, and over 8,000 employees.
About Masabi
Masabi, is the leader in transit mobile ticketing and payments, delivering end-to-end fare payment systems that deliver significant cost savings while revolutionizing the 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 traditional, capital intensive “locked-in” systems, such as smartcards and costly customized 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 110 million dollars per year, handles millions of connections per day, and is working with 22 global transit agencies and retail brands, including: Virgin Trains, First Group, Boston’s MBTA, San Diego MTS as well as recently winning the contract to deliver mobile ticketing for New York’s MTA. Masabi has offices in New York, Boston, and London.
Media Contacts:
Temono for Masabi
Ed Howson
Tel: +44 (0) 7740 173 051
Email: ed.howson@temono.com