Skills ensures students’ safety with TransMach

Aimed at further enhancing the safety of school children and giving parents and carers peace of mind, Nottinghamshire-based Skills Group turned to ticketing specialist, TransMach, to create a bespoke travel app.

Once the child boards a Skills Group bus and validates their journey via TransMach’s contactless handheld TM920 ticket machine, a notification is sent to the parent or carer’s smartphone to confirm that their child is aboard, as well as providing the estimated time of arrival. Children without a smartphone are able to validate their journey using a smartcard from TransMach.

Alongside the Search My Coach app, the transport ticketing specialist created an online booking portal for parents and carers. The bespoke system enables the user to book either single tickets ad-hoc, a carnet package of up to ten trips, or a whole term’s worth of school bus travel. It also has an automatic payment facility, so that any booking interruptions are avoided, as well as a seat management function, to ensure that services are never over-booked. The new App has been rolled out across Skills Group’s fleet of 30 vehicles, each one fitted with TransMach’s mobile TM920 ticket machine, which provides contactless validation.

TransMach’s mobile TM920 contactless unit replaced Skills Group’s legacy manual ticketing system in favour of an Android-based portable solution that links to a cloud-based back-office system. In addition to covering all of its vehicles operating educational contracted routes, TransMach’s TM500 On-bus contactless ticket machines have been installed in Skills Group’s remaining fleet of 20 buses, which serve public transport routes across the county, ensuring the whole operation is fully contactless.

“At times, we even tried to find nuisances to the service, to see if it would phase the team at TransMach but to this day we failed in such endeavours” – Rupert Skill, Group Contracts & Private Hire Manager for Skills Group

Rupert Skill, Group Contracts & Private Hire Manager for Skills Group, said: “Skills are proud to boast a modern fleet and a forward-thinking approach to our operations. We have always kept our eye on emerging technology to help complement our business and continually look to improve the level of service we offer to our clients. We approached several providers but the team at TransMach stuck out as a company willing to go above and beyond in order to satisfy our needs. At no point from pitching our ideas, into developing and eventually to launch, were any questions or requests left unanswered or not achieved. At times, we even tried to find nuisances to the service, to see if it would phase the team at TransMach but to this day we failed in such endeavours. As a result, we have been able to launch a fully adaptable booking system with a complementary client application, which has been delivered without a hitch.”

“As society continues to deal with the pandemic, a cashless public transport system is the way forward” – Minesh Vandra, TransMach’s Director

Minesh Vandra, TransMach’s Director, said: “As society continues to deal with the pandemic, a cashless public transport system is the way forward, so TransMach is well placed to support bus and coach operators in the transition to a fully online ticketing solution. Having built up significant experience working with various transport applications, TransMach takes pride in supporting over 300 customers across the UK and Europe with customer friendly support and competitively-priced ticketing solutions, which include mainstream bus services, inter-town coach and tram operations, as well as commuter, school and demand-responsive services.”

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