Journey Alerts, Asia Mobiliti partner to open up access to public transport for millions in low, mid-income countries

• Announcement during Asia Mobiliti’s participation in Start-up Village at MOVE London '24
• Successful Malaysia project sees deployment to meet transport challenges in other countries

Journey Alerts, a UK company and Malaysian Mobility-as-a-Service company Asia Mobiliti announced at MOVE London 2024 a collaboration to improve urban mobility connectivity, particularly within under-served population groups. The parties aim to enable seamless travel for millions across low and middle-income countries by taking a radically different approach.

Journey Alerts and Asia Mobiliti said they have jointly developed a platform which brings together Demand-Responsive Transit (DRT), passenger intent mapping and personalised journey information to open public transport in regions of high demand but poor access to sustainable services. Uniquely, the service does not use or require a transport app, focusing instead on communicating with passengers exclusively on channels they already use, such as WhatsApp, Messenger and Viber.

With apps not easily accessible or well used in low and middle-income countries, engaging the millions of daily active users on the messaging channels instead will unlock previously unachievable global reach.

The launch follows a successful UK-Malaysia joint funded project in Malaysia in which Journey Alerts and Asia Mobiliti worked to deliver personalised passenger information for public transport via Asia Mobiliti’s Trek platform. The project was the first to combine Kuala Lumpur’s public transport services with Journey Alerts’ real-time travel updates through WhatsApp and Messenger to improve access to public transport for millions in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley.

Behavioural insight generated by Journey Alerts’ sophisticated intent mapping technology also enables local transport operators to re-route existing services and create new routes mapped to actual passenger demand.

Following the successful Malaysia project, Journey Alerts and Asia Mobiliti will now deploy their new technology platform to address similar transport challenges across other countries, with strong demand already from Indonesia, Africa, eastern Europe and South America. Trials in southeast Europe are already planned for later this year.

Alex Froom, Journey Alerts CEO, said: “This is an exciting partnership which will make a genuine difference to millions across the world who struggle to access public transport services. For too long now, improving mobility has over-relied on transport apps which are skewed towards a wealthy urban demographic and are no longer fit for purpose. People are tired of transport apps – only 20% of travellers in Europe now use them, and for 50% of those it’s just Google Maps.”

Froom pointed out that outside of Western Europe, most people cannot even access Google Maps or specific transport apps, making it important to start the conversation on channels they’re using instead. He noted that Viber, for example, was installed on 90% of mobiles in Serbia, while 93% of Brazilians engage daily with WhatsApp. “We have worked closely with our partners at Asia Mobiliti to develop a solution which allows fast-developing transport networks to understand and engage directly with their customers, democratising social mobility for millions.”

Ramachandran Muniandy, Asia Mobiliti CEO said: “This intercontinental partnership began in 2019, having brought both of us together by the Newton Ungku Omar Fund to assess the feasibility of integrating our technologies for deployment in Kuala Lumpur. We found a perfect fit and saw larger potential across the emerging markets, not just in Asia but elsewhere globally. Our mission of enabling Mobility-as-a-Service in low and middle-income countries by digitising and integrating all modes of transport in a city and addressing the first & last-mile connectivity issues with Demand-Responsive Transit necessitates a new approach to passenger messaging delivery. Journey Alerts have refined and perfected this lite tech approach to journey planning and personalised messaging which we’re excited to unleash.”