New MBTA-UMass Lowell Partnership Offers Commuter Rail Option to University Community Through mTicket App

Students can now use MBTA’s mTicket app for Commuter Rail travel between Boston’s North Station and Lowell

 

Boston and London – October 25, 2018 – Masabi, the company bringing Software-as-a-Service ticketing and payments to public transit, today announced the launch of a new mobile ticket offering for students and staff of UMass Lowell, made possible through a partnership involving the University and the MBTA. The partnership allows the university’s 20,000 students, faculty, and staff to receive weekly Commuter Rail passes through their smartphones at no charge to users, which in turn, opens the door for convenient, car-free travel between Lowell and Boston’s North Station.

 

The partnership establishes a fast and simple process that allows enrollees to receive tickets through the mTicket app on their smartphones.  Each semester, students, faculty, and staff members affiliated with UMass Lowell can enroll in the program to access tickets through mTicket. Tickets are then delivered to program members’ smartphones on a weekly basis using Masabi’s External Orders API. The end result is a major improvement over the standing practice of exchanging cash or using credit or debit cards to purchase paper tickets either onboard a train or while waiting in line.

 

“This new program offers our students a new, simple and cost-effective way to commute to and from Boston,” said Tom Miliano, Senior Director of Administrative Services at UMass Lowell. “We’re always looking for new ways to better serve our students and are very happy to be working with the MBTA and Masabi to provide this innovative transportation offering.”

 

“This first-of-its-kind partnership involving the T and UMass Lowell, allows people with a UMass Lowell email address to create an account, activate their ticket on the app, and start riding Commuter Rail,” said MBTA General Manager Luis Manuel Ramírez.  “In its first week alone,more than 3,000 people signed up for the program, and we continue to encourage members of the University community to take advantage of this partnership and the opportunities the MBTA’s Commuter Rail offers.”

 

“This weekly concessionary pass for students is another way that Masabi is furthering our mission of making the public transportation experience as seamless as possible,” said Brian Zanghi, CEO of Masabi. “We’re looking forward to seeing UMass Lowell staff and students taking advantage of this innovative offering.”

 

Other colleges and universities interested in partnering with the MBTA to provide students and faculty with concessionary ticket options can contact Brendan Fogarty, Deputy Director of Fare Products and Strategy at bfogarty@mbta.com. This award winning mobile ticketing concessions service was recognized in January with a Transport Ticketing Global Award for “Helping unlock access to education and reducing deprivation” and is available to all Justride clients.

 

The MBTA’s mTicket app is powered by Masabi’s Justride Platform and was the first mobile ticketing deployment for a transit agency in the United States. The app is currently processing approximately 57 percent of tickets for MBTA commuter rail, and this program further extends the convenience of using mobile apps for daily travel.

 

With over 40 clients across four continents, the Justride Mobility Platform is the most widely deployed end-to-end mobile and account-based ticketing solution in operation, serving a wide range of transit systems around the world. To learn more, visit here.

 

About Masabi

Masabi provides Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ticketing and payments to public transport agencies of all sizes around the globe. Whether looking for a mobile ticketing system, want to enable Mobility as a Service (MaaS), or require an account-based full fare collection solution using a contactless bank card, mobile device or smartcard, Justride is the platform for you.

 

Justride, unifies account-based and pre-pay ticketing into a single configurable solution. Its SaaS architecture, ‘Mobile First‘ approach and Bring Your Own Ticket (BYOT) philosophy, allows transit providers to deliver innovation quickly, delighting passengers and reducing costs, while increasing efficiency and data insights.

 

Masabi is the category creator for transit mobile ticketing and with over 40 clients across 4 continents the Justride mobility platform is the most widely deployed end-to-end mobile and account-based ticketing solution in operation, serving the largest agency in the USA to the smallest bus operator. It has offices in New York, London and Cluj and investors include Mastercard and Keolis.