Shell invests in Masabi to expand ticketing and MaaS platform

Masabi, the mobile ticketing company, has announced that it has finalised an investment from Shell. This investment aims to help support the global expansion of Masabi’s Justride platform, which is said to be bringing ticketing technology and enabling Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) for public transport operators and authorities of all sizes around the globe.

With over 70 clients across 13 countries, Masabi’s integration with transport leaders including Uber, Transit, Jorudan and Kisio Digital is said to be making it easier for people to choose and use public transport services through mass consumer apps, helping place public transport at the centre of the global MaaS movement.

Justride’s latest capability is said to remove the need for passengers to buy a ticket before travelling, allowing them to tap a contactless bank card, mobile phone or smartcard to ride. Masabi believes that functions such as this are allowing cities to move to a Fare Payments-as-a-Service model, helping them keep up with the pace of technology change, while allowing more money to be put back into running transport services.

“As mobile ticketing has evolved, so has the scope of our work. We have expanded our focus beyond just enabling the purchase of tickets to offering passengers convenient solutions for discovering transit options and driving uptake of public systems to reduce congestion,” said Brian Zanghi, CEO at Masabi. “Today, we are working alongside industry leaders in the mobility space to drive the broad deployment of mobile ticketing and fare payment systems around the world. We are delighted to welcome Shell as a strategic partner and look forward to working with them to improve the accessibility, discoverability and usability of public transport services globally.”

“While hybrid and zero-emission projects have proven that the potential for reducing costs and cutting emissions is substantial, we also see the need to take vehicles off the road by transitioning drivers to become riders,” said Roger Hunter, Vice President of E-Mobility at Shell. “But for this to happen, there needs to be a revolution in how people make and take journeys in and around cities; public transport has to modernise and become easier and simpler to choose and use. Through our partnership with Masabi, we find ourselves at the forefront of an emerging technology that is already delivering a tangible and positive impact on how people move around towns and cities across the world.”