Feb 05, 2024

INIT Subsidiary HanseCom Gains First North American Customer for Its URpass Mobile Ticketing Platform

Hamburg, Germany – The Lawton Area Transit System (LATS), a transport agency operating out of Lawton, Oklahoma, is implementing a mobile ticketing app based on the URpass SaaS solution. LATS is the first pilot customer of this new solution recently launched by German provider HanseCom, a wholly-owned subsidiary of init SE. HanseCom will also be presenting the solution at the SWTA Conference and Expo 2024 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

At present, LATS passengers can purchase tickets in buses and service centers using cash or checks only. As part of its modernization initiative, the transport agency decided to start selling its tickets via a dedicated mobile app, the “LATS GO PASS app”, in the near future. The app implemented with URpass will soon be available for iOS and Android smartphones and will enable users to purchase the entire range of LATS tickets on the go. The range includes one-way tickets, multiple tickets, and monthly passes.

“With the LATS GO PASS app, we will offer an attractive and simple way to buy tickets, which is certain to inspire existing customers and attract new ones. As payment is made digitally via a credit card, the system helps us reduce our cash handling expenses at the same time,” explains Ryan Landers, General Manager of LATS. “After taking a close look at various solutions, we decided to partner with HanseCom. The outstanding user experience of the white-label URpass app, the platform’s attractive SaaS model, its intuitive user interface and, last but not least, the company’s impeccable track record of successfully implemented solutions in Germany won us over.”

As part of their joint pilot project, LATS and HanseCom are initially implementing a mobile ticketing solution that allows passengers to present digital tickets on their smartphones to ticket inspectors for visual validation. The pilot project – which was launched in December 2023 – is already in full swing, and the go-live of the mobile app is scheduled for late summer 2024.

The URpass mobile ticketing platform was developed by HanseCom specifically for the requirements of the North American market. It targets small and medium-sized transport agencies, enabling them to set up a digital sales channel quickly and without a large upfront investment. In order to get started, all they need to do is adapt the design of the white label app to their requirements, configure their tickets, upload their fares to the background system and familiarize themselves with how the system works.

URpass is hosted, operated, and continuously refined by HanseCom. The company is a leading provider of mobile ticketing apps and mobility platforms in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and a wholly owned subsidiary of INIT, an international provider of integrated IT solutions for public transportation.

“We are proud that LATS has chosen HanseCom as a partner for modernizing their ticketing landscape, and we warmly welcome our first customer in the North American market,” says HanseCom Managing Director Martin Timmann. “URpass offers LATS a cost-efficient solution that allows the transport agency to move to digital ticketing in a very short time and expand the system flexibly as required.”

HanseCom will present URpass at SWTA 2024, which will take place from February 4-7 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At INIT's booth # 340, interested visitors can take a look at the white label app and the platform’s administration backend.