Major changes are taking place with regard to paying for public transport. In particular new payment techniques, such as EMV and the phasing out of the public transport chip card in 2024. This offers the possibility, within concessions, to change the current rate system, other start rates or km rates and product types.
Project
Public transport payment
Public transport payment
Expertise
Industry, Data science, Geography, Capabilities
Industry, Data science, Geography, Capabilities
Client
Industry
Project type
Geography
Year
2022-current
2022-current
Challenge
Major changes are taking place with regard to paying for public transport. In particular new payment techniques, such as EMV and the phasing out of the public transport chip card in 2024. This offers the possibility, within concessions, to change the current rate system, other start rates or km rates and product types. In addition, travelers are paying increasingly on the basis of fair use, and this is causing a loss of turnover in many concessions. However, it was unclear what the impact of new product types would be. Carriers, public transport authorities, passenger organizations and governments lacked insight into the impact on the turnover of the concession, but also the financial impact for the passenger.
Our solution
We developed a pricing impact model to give the province and the traveler organization more insight into the impact of new potential pricing systems on the various traveler groups. Travelers are divided into groups based on current product, travel frequency and travel distance. The pricing impact model determines the impact for each traveler group based on their travel behavior. The pricing impact model calculates the best choice of product and subsequent impact on each group month by month. The pricing impact model contains various parameters, such as the start rate, kilometer rate, number of free kilometers, discounts and various subscriptions and subscription prices. It’s possible to calculate different rate systems and to determine which passenger group benefits or deteriorates the most in which situation. Users can adjust these parameters and turn products on or off to determine their impact. Questions that were answered included: What happens if we replace the zone subscriptions with a capping product? On which travelers will an increase in the boarding fare have most impact?
Results
With the pricing impact model, the users gain a grip on what product and pricing choices to make in order to distribute the consequences of the new payment techniques as equitable as possible, while maintaining revenue constant. Using clear impact graphs, the impact of the rate changes is calculated monthly and has been done for more than a million Dutch travellers.