The Public Transport sector is not known for swiftly and easily taking on tech innovations. Adopting new technologies may be appealing to some (especially users), but so is running an efficient, safe and reliable passenger & freight service around a city, region or country.
Keeping up with customer demands in the transport industry is a continuous cycle… There’s new user experience trends, exciting (well to some) payment types and a constant flood of mobile apps & digital services to integrate with. Customer needs are now firmly set by the big technology companies, with everyone expecting “Apple-like functionality” all the time.
So if you are a transport service provider how can you ensure your next customer-facing application will be future-proof?
The short answer is “you can’t”. Predicting what the future will bring is almost impossible, and by the time most organisations have usually specified, procured and delivered something technical to be delivered it is almost certainly no longer going to be cutting edge.
However, transport authorities apply some key principles to ensure what they procure is as forward-compatible as possible…
- Use self-contained, modular & independent services that each meet specific use cases, rather than implement a huge application that you only need part of (and that quite possibly duplicates functionality you already have elsewhere)
- Have a clear “buy vs build” policy and understand the business & tech impact of each, including longer-term considerations such as: hosting, support & maintenance and future changes.
Notes:
Buy usually means purchasing a solution (“off the shelf” or as a “software-as-a-service” [SaaS] product) that another organisation has previously built, then enhancing it or configuring it to meet your own needs.
Build usually means designing, developing and testing a bespoke solution with your own resources (either in-house or using a 3rd party) - Use Open and Interoperable standards, to ensure your technology integrates & works with other technology and that it can easily be expanded & upgraded. Proprietary standards, specific to a single vendor, can trap you in a situation where you’re reliant on that vendor for future upgrades, maintenance, and support. This lack of choice can significantly inflate costs and limit your options in the long run. Open standards, on the other hand, allow you to choose from a wider pool of compatible vendors and products, fostering competition and potentially driving down costs.
Open Transport - Transport & Mobility Data Interoperability 