Jonathan Welch speaks to Snapper Services’ Jon Salmon about how company’s data analytics platform, the Mosaiq Transit Intelligence Suite, has developed and grown
Founded by infrastructure investment company Infratil in 2006 and acquired by mobility technology specialist ICM Mobility Group in 2019, Snapper Services has its origins in transport ticketing, and grew after uncovering what it thought was an unmet need; it saw that public transit organisations were being overwhelmed by data they have but can’t make sense of. At the same time, the data they could analyse didn’t reconcile with the real-world experience they were seeing, leading them to wonder why it was relevant, how they could trust it, and how they could make decisions based on it with confidence. At the same time, reporting and compliance requirements were continuously changing and growing, as was the need to make data-based business and planning decisions, all of which it saw were taking an increasingly enormous amount of time, resources and investment, or often just set aside as ‘too hard.’
‘There had to be a better way,’ the company thought, which led it to develop its Mosaiq Transit Intelligence Suite, growing its team and creating what it says is ‘an easy-to-use platform for transit authorities and operators to understand and improve the performance of their networks.’
Starting with its own internal customers in 2019, Snapper’s Mosaiq platform has expanded through sister company Vix Technology and in 2024 it expanded further through partnerships with HaydenAI, Transit, AWS and Optibus, creating what the company says is ‘a truly global footprint’ which will ‘really make a difference to the way the world of transport works.’
The company says its products are now in use in 10 countries, supporting some 15,000 vehicles and over 3.5m monthly passenger journeys.
But this isn’t a sales pitch or an advertorial; the question we’re asking here is ‘but why is that important?’ It’s probably no surprise to anyone in the sector that data is becoming an increasingly vital part of everyday operations. Whether you’re a bus operator needing to monitor passenger flows or see what the network pinch-points are, a coach operator wanting to track vehicles and know if there are any technical problems, or a local authority trying to keep track of supported service performance, it all comes down to using data in some form; they all have ownership of vast amounts of it, but as Snapper Services puts it, very little trust in it, and little access to it.
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It’s around a year since we spoke in depth to Snapper Services’ CEO Miki Szikszai, who explained that “you need to be able to use the data, put it in the hands of your workforce to enable them to do that. That’s what Mosaiq is all about, it offers a way of making sure the fundamentals of your network are working well. That’s in everyone’s benefit.”
Just after launching Mosaiq on the AWS online software platform, Miki was in London recently for the annual Transport Ticketing Global trade show, accompanied by Snapper Services Business Development Director Jon Salmon. We caught up with Jon to see how things have changed and developed in the intervening 12 months, and to hear why data intelligence is becoming ever more important.
Partnerships
I started off by asking Jon about his impressions of Transport Ticketing Global and the ticketing industry in general. “The ticketing industry isn’t as fast-moving as the software side, but one of the key things we saw there this year was the willingness to partner,” Jon explained. “From a Snapper perspective, we’re really keen on ingesting data, and ticketing is one that we’re keen to expand. We’re already doing it in Wellington in New Zealand, and we’re looking to start doing it with some of our customers in the UK and Europe. People are really seeing that there’s a greater value in collaboration now, and we’re seeing an increasing willingness to partner.
“Lots of people try to do what they’re good at then partner for the rest. That’s our strategy as well.”
Moving on, I asked Jon how things have progressed since I spoke to Miki in 2023. “Since last year, from a product perspective, we’ve brought out a number of different features,” Jon explained, “all of which help local authorities delve further into the dataset and answer more of the questions that they’re seeking the answers to. We have a strong roadmap of more areas to delve into over the next 12 months and beyond, and all of those are things that have been picked up through research and liaison with our customers.
“From the customer side, we’ve reached 17 around the world, across the UK – including the likes of West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Hampshire County Council – Europe, the Middle East, North America, New Zealand and Australia, where we’re working with Go-Ahead. That’s really good from a standing start. That’s given us a good understanding of the way different transport authorities and operators operate, and the different problems that they have, but also the common problems they face, so we know we’re on the right track towards building a truly global platform. It’s been a great period for us, validating and building relationships worldwide.
“We’re continuing our strategy of partnering as well. We’ve got a number of partners in the industry, and we’re continuing to look for new ones. The reason we’re able to do that is that Mosaiq is very complementary to their offerings; we’re not looking to disrupt the market. We are aiming to provide an additional layer of complementary services to end users.
“As a platform, Mosaiq has been designed to easily integrate with third parties to bring data feeds in. It means everyone can sing from the same hymn sheet. It allows you to demonstrate joint value to the end customer, by using the data. We work with companies which have a complementary service, and we’re using the same data sets but pulling out the information in different ways. It adds real value within organisations. If they have access to data in a usable format, and can easily share it, then everyone is making decisions off the same data-set.”
Worldwide needs
As the company expands its worldwide knowledge, what are the key needs or asks from different regions, I wondered. “We’re seeing a few key themes,” Jon explained. “Getting the whole picture of the network is always the key, whether that comes from looking at it from an individual trip level or at a management contract level. In the UK, now franchising is taking off, a transport authority having the ability to look at all the operators and services and work out how they are performing against their contracts is critical.
“The most common theme is on-time performance. It sounds like an easy problem to solve but it’s not. Presenting the data in a usable format really helps authorities and operators to delve into where the problems are on their networks. Those are two of the key issues that always stand out to us.
“Another thing which has been really noticeable as we’ve been doing our user experience research and building the products is that previously data was available within an organisation, but was often related to specific roles within that organisation, such as scheduling or planning. It really helps when making decisions if everyone in an organisation has access to all of the data that is available.
”That’s still a part of our overall goal; to make it as easily accessible to everyone as we can.”
What about the future? What comes next? “First of all, we need to make sure the data is available and that everyone has access to it,” Jon explained. “The other themes we’re noticing are around increasing the visibility of key corridors, and the ability to package up reports on those corridors is becoming important, especially where franchising is concerned.
“The other area that we’re seeing growth in is around AI; it’s the same for everyone. We’re constantly looking at ways to bring that in the platform that will bring value to the end user and enhance the product. We’ve got some great ideas how to enhance the capability of the existing product and add additional value through AI.”
Data blind-spot
Snapper believes that the Department for Transport has suffered from somewhat of a blind-spot when it comes to data accessibility. If that’s the case, how do we solve it? Jon said: “From our perspective, Mosaiq is designed to make all of the data available in a more accessible way, and there needs to be more of that. There are a lot of platforms sitting side-by-side in big organisations, with no integration or alignment between the two, so you end up with a lot of stand-alone data-sets. Pulling those together is incredibly complex, but that’s what we need to see happen, to give a common view and enable users to start making decisions reliably.
“We’re going in the right direction now as an industry. For any transport body, especially the DfT, it’s important to be pulling from all those data feeds. You want to have the most comprehensive picture you can to be able to make an effective change.”
But is there too much data, I wondered, especially for some of the smaller and less tech-savvy companies out there? Even with software to help distil and understand it, is it too much? “There is, and that’s why we’ve designed Mosaiq in the way we have,” Jon told me. “We picked out the bits that are important. Anyone can look at the big data, but there needs to be a level of intelligence over the top of it which provides the metrics and insights which are most valuable to whoever is looking at it.”
AWS Marketplace
Access to data is one thing, but access to the tools, such as Mosaiq, is another altogether. Unusually for the sector, Snapper decided to make Mosaiq available via AWS Marketplace, an online ‘shop’ for third-party software providers. “That allows customers to buy Mosaiq direct from AWS Marketplace,” explained Jon, “which has obvious value. If they’re already buying from there, they can add Mosaiq, and it increases efficiencies as the more they spend on AWS, the more they save.
“More importantly, to get any software into the marketplace, you need to go through some rigorous security checks, and being on AWS provides customers with a verification that the product is market lead and we can use that in our conversations with end customers.
“AWS also supports on proof of concept and innovation, which becomes valuable when we have items that we really want to push ahead with from a development perspective. AWS will support us on that, which allows us to move quicker to provide what our customers want. It’s a really useful sales channel for us.
“It’s a step towards bringing the transit market forward in terms of procurement. It might take a while, but from our perspective there are not many transport tech companies on there. I suspect more will come in the future; it’s a route to market which hasn’t been explored. It makes it much quicker for us to set up a new pilot, for new customers large and small. It’s one of our key onboarding points.”
Sustainability goals
At all levels, the transport sector is increasingly conscious of the environmental agenda and the need to increase sustainability. “Improving public transport services is key to reducing emissions,” Jon said. “We fit into that by reducing the carbon emissions emitted by private vehicles by helping to create positive public transport experiences. Our platform shows where there’s room for improvement. If our customers start to live and breathe our platform and start to make decisions based on the data they’re seeing, it will enhance their customer experience. Enhance that and more people will want to use it.”
Looking at the business itself, Jon explained that the ticketing side of Snapper in New Zealand remains very positive, and a lot of investment is being placed in the growth side, data. Staff numbers are up to around 85, and its team in the UK is growing, up from one last year to five, with an estimate of around 10 by the end of the year. “We plan to continue to grow the platform and get as many customers on board as possible,” Jon said, looking to the future. “That allows us to learn from those customers and build the most compelling product that we can. In the short to medium term, we’re also building up our partnerships, and in the long term, we want to be market leaders in this space.”
Given Snapper’s worldwide reach, I wondered if there were discernibly different trends between commercial operations in the UK and contracted or franchised ones elsewhere. There are always similar pain points, but as you get into the detail in the different regions, there are unique regulations, data needs, and localisation steps which bring complexities,” Jon told me. “It’s the same in any industry. But overall there’s definitely a trend towards using the data. For so long, systems have been in place for generating the data, and now people are thinking ‘let’s use it for something meaningful. That’s where we come in.
”Across the geography, everyone has their own themes and pressures, but the constant is that they want to use the data.”
Real value
“There’s a real value in using platforms such as Mosaiq to service data needs in an understandable format,” Jon continued. “Data has been dealt with for so long in silos, and I think having a platform which makes it all accessible to everyone adds real value. The easier the platforms are to use, and the more powerful, the quicker we can use them to make changes that will make operations better.”
As its publicity says, Mosaiq has been designed from the ground up to offer ‘a bird’s-eye view’ of transit networks and give an accurate big picture, leading to greater passenger and driver experiences and easier, faster operational insights whilst reducing the cost, time and frustration of data unification; taking the clunk, time and frustration out of data analysis and reporting and revealing what happened, and why it happened, with ease to give a deeper understanding of network operations from a big picture view right down to the most granular detail. With ever-increasing demands pulling in all directions, for passenger and stakeholder information, for improved efficiency, and to best match electric bus performance with routes and schedules, it’s not hard to see that the market for data, and for ways to analyse and work with it, is one that’s going to grow exponentially.
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