Public Funding for General Information Systems Limited

Despite online check-in for many forms of transport, flying with baggage has not changed in 40-years. Passengers still suffer the frustrations of having to drag heavy suitcases to an airport check-in desk or bag drop and queue at carousels to collect bags at the end of the flight. IATA surveys highlight baggage related queues, waiting and delayed or lost bags as a major negative impact on the passenger experience and most passengers prefer to travel to airports by car if travelling with heavy bags. UK Aerotag will introduce the concept of home check-in of bags, facilitate local bag drops or collection and use existing logistics infrastructure to collect and deliver bags to and from the airport. Research indicates passengers will be more willing to use public transport to travel to and from an airport without bags and new aircraft will allow more comfortable, fuel efficient, lower cost travel in the long-term. New permanent, smart active bag tags, supply chains, regulation, process and infrastructure will be required to deliver this vision, consistent with industry vision and expectations by 2020.

MultiPass is an 18 month, collaborative project which will implement an integrated, low-cost multi-protocol smart ticketing & digital uber-wallet platform. MultiPass will provide seamless multi-modal travel for passengers & tourists, together with reduced Opex and increased revenue collection for transit operators. MultPass will integrate several proven technologies (incl. ITSO, EMV, NFC, cloud TVM & BLE) into a single end-to-end platform, which will comprise low-cost, Easy and cheap to install, station-based BLE beacons, cloud-based server/services & passenger-carried form factors. MultiPass will uniquely solve key transit operator & DfT problems: Capex & Opex reduction via remote delivery & validation of ITSO-compliant tickets; improved fare collection, capacity utilisation & customer experience via ‘virtual gating’, ‘cloud TVM’ and 'fares virtualization'. Project lead is an SME: TEDIPAY (UK) Limited. Project partners include SME organisations (GuestLogix Europe Limited, Ecebs Limited, General Information Systems Limited, Global Travel Ventures Ltd) & academia (Centre for Transport Studies @ Imperial College London), plus rail operators (Abellio Greater Anglia & Strathclyde Partnership for Transport) as access to field trials, stations and end-users and in market advisory roles. Mike Burden (ex-Consult Hyperion) is engaged as an assistant project manager.