The UITP MENA Transport Conference and Exhibition took place in Dubai’s World Trade Centre beginning of February.
Jointly organised and hosted by UITP and the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), the event aims to promote public transport throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and showcase the developments in public transport on a global stage. This year’s event brought together expert voices to push forward the debate on the future of urban mobility at a crucial time for cities worldwide.
With eight themed sessions and four featured sessions across all three days, the programme contained topics such as Cities of Tomorrow, Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), AI and Big Data, Safety and Security, Clean buses, and smart mobility management.
The UITP MENA Transport Exhibition is also a business and networking platform for all players within the public transport sector with up to 100 international names showcasing their latest innovations, products, and developments.
Julian Rossy who is our Business Development Manager at FAIRTIQ for the APAC & MENA region attended the three day event in Dubai to represent FAIRTIQ.
“I was very happy to attend the UITP MENA conference this year, because it was my first in-person event after a long while. As the UITP Global Public Transport Summit 2021 was cancelled, many stakeholders made the trip to Dubai to attend this event.
FAIRTIQ was well represented with a booth at the exhibition as well as a seat on an insightful panel about MaaS, with Keolis, Via and the RTA. During the 3 days event, I managed to meet a lot of public transport professionals had the chance to see our friends in-person again. The MENA region is very dynamic and currently investing a lot in public transport: a great move towards sustainability.”
FAIRTIQ took part in one themed session: “Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS): All you need to know”
Each speaker gave their views on MaaS: how to make it happen & how to increase user adoption. Julian, from FAIRTIQ, explained how FAIRTIQ believes that public transport must be the backbone of MaaS and that each successful MaaS should start with easy and seamless public transport. In other words: “Public Transport-as-a-Service”. We suggested a five step approach:
- Simplify ticketing: make ticketing as simple as possible
- Gamify ticketing: provide access to travel data dashboard to users. Provide rewards.
- Incentivize users: innovate fares via capping, loyalty, creditting, etc.
- Delight stakeholders: work with corporates, destinations or events to sponsor public transport to specific locations (co-pay)
- Optimize operations: use ticketing data to optimize public transport operations.
The speakers were:
- Annelise Avril, Senior Executive Vice President, Marketing, Innovation & New Mobility Services, Keolis Group
- Endre Angelvik, Executive Vice President, Radical Innovation, Ruter (Norway)
- Meera Al Shaikh, Director, Smart Services, Roads and Transport Authority, Dubai (UAE)
- Ahmed Hafez Regional Director, Via
- Julian Rossy Head of Service Excellence, FAIRTIQ
The six experts from all around the globe discussed topics such as:
• MaaS global trends: How do people move after Covid-19?
• Integration of public transport and complimentary modes
• Stakeholders and business models
• Can MENA be a hub for MaaS after Covid-19?
“The panel was very insightful thanks to its diversity: different views, same vision: innovate to make sustainable mobility more accessible. I was glad to see how most of the attendants agreed on how public transport should be the backbone of MaaS. Most of the them had never heard of FAIRTIQ, but were impressed to see how hard we are working on simplifying public transport. “ - Julian Rossy, Business Development Manager at FAIRTIQ for the APAC & MENA region
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