Making public transport ticketing as easy as ever

"I wanted to do something that helps many people in their everyday lives," says Gian-Mattia in our interview. And hell, yes, he did fulfill that desire of his. After working for SBB as their Head of Ticketing and driving big projects within their ticketing system, including a large but abandoned hardware-based automated ticketing system, he left and founded his own consulting company. Not entirely satisfied with this outcome, a few months after leaving his job at SBB, Gian-Mattia found himself experimenting with digital ticketing solutions as a side project. It happened to become an entrepreneurial project, and eventually, he took the leap and founded FAIRTIQ Ltd to bring this futuristic solution onto the market.

Simplicity for various public transport logics

Today, many of us know the solution and use it in our everyday lives, e.g., in the FAIRTIQ-App or the SBB app known as "Easy Ride". You simply activate the tracker in the app when entering the bus or train and deactivate it again when you get off. By then, the app had tracked your journey and calculated the cheapest possible ticket price for you. This means no matter how complex the public transport map is or which route you take, if you know which zones you cross on your journey or not, you will have no hustle to get your ticket on time for the correct route. This technology makes it incredibly convenient for the end consumer, the public transport user. So much that users even gave feedback like: "Thanks to FAIRTIQ, I started using and enjoying public transport so much" or "I was introduced to using Easy Ride from my 95-year-old neighbour." This feedback proves that this way of digital ticket purchase is not excluding older people from using public transport – it's ridiculously simple to use.

Users and operators benefit equally from the technology

We should also mention the advantages for the public transport operator. They benefit from an affordable distribution channel that doesn't need infrastructure and provides them with additional services such as data analysis. Operating the ticketing through an app also allows public transport providers to use the channel to support behavioral patterns, e.g., by providing discounts for riding the train in off-peak times. The usage of FAIRTIQ's technology has massively increased in the past years. While in the first year, 100'000 transactions were made using the software; today, it's 100'000 transactions in half a day. "This growth was enabled through the expansion from a handful of regions in Switzerland to covering the entire country, among others, with the SBB app. FAIRTIQ also expanded to parts of Austria, Germany, and France and will soon become available in Denmark.

Denmark's public transport system is embarking on FAIRTIQ 's vision

The implementation of FAIRTIQ's technology in Denmark is worth a story. "15 years ago, Denmark implemented a card-based system throughout the country. By now, the agency responsible for this system has been planning to make the public transport ticketing system hardware-free for five years. In the next two years, our software will eliminate and replace this. It is the biggest project in our company history and will triple the transaction volume", Gian-Mattia proudly says. "A fun fact to add: The project lead who implemented the card system 15 years ago is now responsible for implementing the software-based ticketing system with us. And he is super excited and impressed by the speed we can execute to implement the system there." Finishing this project is also the next milestone the scale-up focuses on. A user test with 10'000 users this spring will mark the next big step.

Bumpers on the way to success

Another interesting fact and a learning for themselves and other entrepreneurs is that this Danish project was won after FAIRTIQ had lost a more petite tender. "Every time we lost against competitors in smaller tenders, a big win followed. This taught us not to keep stuck in frustration but learn from the situation and make something big with it," says Gian-Mattia. The most prominent bumper, however, was back in 2016 when BLS announced an equivalent solution that would compete with FAIRTIQ shortly before launching their technology. "At first, we were shocked because we were living in this illusion that we could secretly develop something that the world was waiting for and be the only provider of it. Then, we decided to give it our all and grew faster than BLS's technology. We started cooperating with them, and they eventually became our customers."

Vision and wins leading to customers' trust

Whereas such customer wins are likely superior in an entrepreneur's journey, FAIRTIQ has a history of winning renowned awards such as the Swiss Economic Award in 2018, the Worldwide UITP Public Transport Award in 2019, and the SEF.Growth label in 2023. "These accomplishments radiate our progress and support the trust-building process when contacting new potential customers. With our great team, clear vision, and acknowledgments from third parties and awards, we will continue our success story."