The UITP Asia pacific Special Recognition Award is being awarded by Jérôme Poubaix, UITP Senior Director Global Growth (second from left). The recipients are Dr. Jürgen Greschner, CSO (l.), and Suvi Schwab, Regional Manager INIT Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. (in the middle), on behalf of INIT. To the right LTA-Chief Executive Ngien Hoon Ping and LTA-Deputy Chief Executive for Policy and Planning Jeremy Jap.
Karlsruhe, June 28, 2019
INIT succeeded at the UITP Global Public Transport Summit in Stockholm. The Karlsruhe-based company not only attracted a large number of visitors at their booth and received a lot of praise for their solutions – e.g. in the field of both mobility platforms and e-mobility – but also celebrated two awards: the UITP Innovation Award in the category “Diversity & Inclusion” as well as the Asia Pacific Special Recognition Award for the MAVIS project, which INIT carried out with the Land Transit Authority Singapore.
The awards were given in recognition of a project that makes public transport more inclusive and accessible for visually impaired, hearing-impaired or mobility-impaired passengers. The heart of MAVIS (an acronym for “Mobility Assistance for the Visually Impaired and Selected Users”) is a smartphone app developed by INIT.
Shaping public transport trends MaaS and electromobility
During their trade show appearance, INIT highlighted two trending topics in public transport – Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and electromobility. MaaS, a topic heavily discussed at the conference, was of immense interest to the visitors at the booth. With the help of the INIT-solution, new mobility offers like rental bikes or cars can reasonably be integrated into an open mobility platform which combines public and private providers to a passenger-friendly door-to-door-service.
Interested visitors could learn what such a platform may look like at one of the expo sessions: There the regional mobility platform, regiomove was introduced to the public. Mobility offers by several providers are connected all over the Karlsruhe mobility region on a common platform, which enables the planning and booking of intermodal travel chains. End users can book for all service providers and transport modes at once – and later pay just one invoice. INIT is developing the corresponding booking and payment platform.
Once more, this project proves the power of innovation of TechnologieRegion Karlsruhe in the world of mobility. Therefore, UITP wants to intensify long-term collaboration with the region. Together with leading mobility players, among them INIT, the UITP Karlsruhe Innovation Partnership was launched in Stockholm. It is the first partnership of its kind in the world. Together the partners strive for innovative mobility solutions. There will also be a UITP training centre where the first training will take place already in November – “Data and Business Intelligence” (20 – 22 November 2019).
Another topic to spur a great deal of interest was electromobility. The successful implementation and operation of electric buses will not only require a rethinking of processes. It also calls for adaption and complementation of operational information systems. INIT customers can benefit from an integrated solution that covers all factors of electric mobility – from simulation and planning to charging and depot management, operations control and range prediction to analyses and reporting. Hence, eMOBILE provides the support to help master the challenges electric buses present.
Smart ticketing solutions appealed to visitors
It is the goal of public transport providers worldwide to make payments as quick and easy for the passengers as possible. This goal can be achieved especially well by using modern smart ticketing solutions. As a leading smart ticketing provider, INIT has already succeeded in carrying out numerous projects in which passengers pay their fare easily via bank or credit card (EMV, i.e. Europay International, Mastercard, VISA) or via smartphone. The latter is being done either with a virtual smartcard on the phone or via payment providers.
A project in which tickets can be paid via Android-smartphone and Google Pay has been carried out with INIT solutions for some time – at the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District (TriMet) in Portland, Oregon. Passengers with Apple devices now can pay for fares via Apple Pay (Apple Wallet) as well. They just have to hold their iPhone or their Apple Watch in front of the validators in the vehicles or the PROXmobil passenger terminals on the platforms or at bus stops. MOBILEvario, INIT’s fare management and clearing system, calculates the fare, confirms the transaction in the customer’s online account and displays the calculated fare in real time. It became obvious by the visitors’ keen interest that INIT revolutionizes ticketing with this kind of solution.
INIT CSO, Dr. Jürgen Greschner, takes pride in the felicitous performance of the company: “To us, the UITP Global Public Transport Summit always provides an excellent opportunity to present our capability. As player in the public transport industry, we have to adapt to trends and future topics and offer products that enable our customers to master new challenges. It is not only obvious by the large number of visitors at our booth that we managed to do this again but winning the awards proved it as well. INIT stands for future-oriented projects like MAVIS and regiomove. We are going to continue along our successful path and are looking forward to UITP Summit 2021 in Melbourne already.”
Head of Department Corporate Marketing
init SE
Germany
Phone: +49 721 6100 113
Fax: +49 721 6100 399